Tag: tarot | Femme Art Review

Talking to Myself: On the Occult

The Star Card display. Photo courtesy of Emme Lund.

By Emme Lund

In 2015, in the shed behind the Small Press Distribution warehouse in Berkeley, CA, I had a tarot reading with CA Conrad during Halloween weekend. The shed was warm. Christmas lights lined the crease where the walls met the ceiling. The poet’s painted fingernails bent over the edge of the deck, bracelets dangling from their wrists. “What would you like to ask the cards?” they said.

“I’m stuck. How do I unstick?”

I’d had a terrible week, month, whole year, actually. My partner and I were moving to Portland, OR in a couple of weeks. When I first moved to Oakland, I thought I would live there forever, eventually dying in the Bay Area, but capitalism ruins all and the tech industry had pushed rents far past what we could afford.

CA Conrad shuffled the cards, their eyes closed.

They laid out three cards on the table in front of me. One for the past, one for the present, and one for the future. I don’t remember the exact cards, but I remember the story they told.

The first card was a jumbled mess, a forest burning to the ground. They tapped the card. “You’ve had a hard time. Your past was difficult.”

There’s a feeling I get when something rings true for me, a feeling that I’ve chased for much of my life because, for a long time, most things did not ring true. Everything felt wrong, even things that felt right to others. This feeling comes up in my chest, catches in my throat, and a burning finds the backs of my eyes. I have always been quick to tears. I was reckoning with a lot then. My drinking was out of hand. Queerness was bubbling inside of me but right beside it was bubbles of shame. I had been thinking a lot about that feeling of wrongness I’d felt my whole life, the thing that made it so that many things did not ring true.

The Death Card display. Photo Courtesy of Emme Lund.

They moved on to the next card. Someone walked among the burnt forest, assessing the damage, a card later in the same series. “Here you are now,” they said, “going over your past, understanding how hard it was for you.”

This rang less true for me. I wasn’t dealing with my past. I was looking to the future, looking for a way to happiness.

I must have made a face, because CA Conrad smiled and then tapped the next card, a star exploding. “This is a very good card,” they said. “In this card, you are surrounded by people who love you. Life feels like a party. This is your future, but you won’t get there until you’ve reckoned with your difficult past and figured out who you are.”

I felt a kinship to these people and so I let them read tarot for me, I looked up my natal chart, and over and over again, I experienced that feeling of something ringing true, a feeling I had not felt in some time.

It took me a long time to find a home in reading tarot and following astrology. I was raised in a devoutly Evangelical Christian home, a household so strict that I was once forbidden from owning anything related to aliens after my grandfather walked in one day and claimed all things outer space to be the work of Satan. My aversion to the occult was based on the false dichotomy that if tarot and astrology were the work of the Devil, the opposite to Christianity, then it was also a religion, the opposite side of the same coin. I didn’t want anything to do with any religion. I’m a queer trans girl who asks questions about everything around her. All I ever heard was that I was either born wrong or choosing a path that led to my own destruction, all in the name of religion.

I must admit that when I first left Christianity, I swung too hard into the world of logic and reason. I abandoned any search for magic out of fear that I would find myself trapped in another religion. But I quickly found that something deep inside of me wanted me to explore my depths. My gravitation towards the occult grew out of a desire to know myself.

And some magic cannot be denied.

In 2005, I met the person who later became my wife. I fell in love. Early on in our relationship, they said something to the tune of, “Magic is simply science we can’t explain yet.” We moved to the Bay Area together and quickly fell in with a crowd of witchy poets, the kind of friends who throw parties where someone is reading tarot in the corner and new acquaintances ask what your sun, moon, and rising sign is as soon as they learn your name.

I felt a kinship to these people and so I let them read tarot for me, I looked up my natal chart, and over and over again, I experienced that feeling of something ringing true, a feeling I had not felt in some time.

The High Priestess Card display. Photo courtesy of Emme Lund.

I don’t think astrology or tarot can predict the future.

I believe astrology lays out a blueprint for the kind of person we may become and the challenges we may face within ourselves, but I don’t believe it is absolute nor is it the totality of our person. We are also our genetics and our social status and where we were born and who raised us and so much more. We have been watching the stars for thousands of years and astrology is a collection of our observations.

For me, tarot offers an opportunity to inquire how I feel about something, a chance to convene with my intuition. In 2017, exactly two years after CA Conrad read tarot for me in the shed, I got sober. I don’t think the cards or the stars could predict I would get sober, but I think I knew, deep down, that sobriety was something I wanted and astrology and tarot gave me the power to tell my story in a way that led to sobriety. For humans, stories help us make sense of the world. Astrology and tarot are a way for our intuitions to apply form and structure to the chaos of this life on earth. They lead us to what we want.

If you do A and B, eventually you will find C.

What I like about astrology and tarot, about magic in general, is that it does not care if you believe in it. It is not like the religion of my youth, full of absolutes. A refrain I hear often when I listen to horoscopes or teachings on tarot is “Take what you will and leave the rest.”

Nearly every morning begins with me seated at my altar, lighting a candle, and drawing a card from my tarot deck. In the quietness of the room and the space between my dreams and the emerging day, I can find a stillness that lets me consider what I’m feeling. Some mornings the card I draw feels exciting. Sometimes it is harder for me to understand what a particular card could mean in the context of the day. Often a card will only make sense later when I look back at what I was doing at the time I drew it, when the details of what my intuition was working on become clear.

When I look back on my life now, it seems inevitable. Like, of course, I would end up here, a sober trans woman who knows herself better than she ever thought possible. I often think about that time in the shed with CA Conrad, when they told me I would not find happiness until I came to terms with my difficult past and got to who I truly was. I don’t know. Maybe my life was inevitable, but really, I can’t help but look back at all those times I’ve shuffled a tarot deck or read about what the stars were doing, trying to apply both to the context of my life. There’s no doubt in my mind that astrology and tarot gave me the space to convene with myself, to speak with my own intuition, and to choose which way I wanted my life to go. But as with all things: Take what you will and leave the rest.

*The Boy with a Bird in His Chest* by Emme Lund.

Check out Emme Lun d’s debut novel, THE BOY WITH A BIRD IN HIS CHEST, out from Atria Books on February 15, 2022.

Take the Sacred Pause: Talking Tarot with Laura Dawe

978D39DD-98FB-4C48-A8C1-48315263ADA5 — Laura Dawe, *Pack of Dogs* tarot deck 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

By EA Douglas

In early 2018, a blocky mauve building with green eaves appeared on my Explore feed and brought Laura Dawe and her work into my life. A painter, a filmmaker, an occasional tattooist, the host of BUMP TV’s Valentine’s MATCHtacular, Dawe released her Pack of Dogs Tarot Cards in 2019. We got on the phone to discuss her process of making the deck and the rituals surrounding her readings and creative practice.

EA Douglas: Let’s start with your own history with the Tarot. When did you first start engaging with Tarot? When did you decide to make your own deck?

Laura Dawe: I decided to make my own deck and I started engaging with Tarot at the exact same time, which was when I was a 14-year-old goth and I knew nothing about it. I didn’t own a deck, I didn’t know anyone who did, I had never had my cards read or anything. But obviously the mystical depictions, I was just like “this is the coolest thing ever” and I started to make a deck.

Then I went to Newfoundland for my grandfather’s funeral, and my Uncle was there, and he’s actually an artist as well. He’s pretty deeply religious. We went for a walk to the Ocean and I was telling him excitedly about this thing I was making, thinking that he would think it was cool, and he basically had an intervention. He was like, “These are tools of the Devil, if you open the door for the Devil to come into your life you may never be able to close it.” I abandoned the project and then didn’t really start doing the Tarot thing until my ex-boyfriend bought me a deck close to 10 years ago. I used that deck to make some very major decisions in my life, that still resonate until this day, and slowly I started learning the cards.

While I was doing my Master’s, it occurred to me that I might make a deck. I was making a lot of art about archetypes and studying Carl Jung who made his own Tarot deck. Then I’m writing this movie and in the movie, the girl has a Tarot deck, they live in a very resource scare apocalyptic world. I knew the aesthetics of the movie; I knew how she would make a deck and so that’s how I ended up making mine. Basically, pretending I was her.

6F661823-0D7D-47FC-863D-EC4F9DE1DD90 — Laura Dawe, *Pack of Dogs, tarot deck* 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: I have a quote here, that each Tarot deck “tends to have its own voice and story written in the images.”^[1] I know it’s called Pack of Dogs, and the large black dog almost prances from one card to another. What’s the source behind the dog?

LD: The dog has been in my paintings for a long time, kind of representing our shadow selves. I have a painting that I made when I was having a very serious shame-over called Bad Dog Wants to Be Good. It’s a black dog smoking a cigarette with a white dog in its mind, surrounded by empty wine bottles and there’s a full moon outside.

It’s sort of that idea, it’s different for all of us, as an extrovert (like) me, sometimes I will leave a social situation and feel this incredible shame that I dominated the conversation or neglected people. I would think about that and (know) I can’t control it. I think we all have these things, some people have anger issues, some people binge eat, some people have all three or seven.

We all have these little black dogs running around inside of us and I feel sometimes they’re definitely deeply tied to our unconscious; sometimes we’re aware of them, sometimes we’re not, sometimes we’re aware of them and we still can’t control them.

For example, the Lovers card we think about like “Oh! It’s definitely a good omen for romance!” While that is true, there’s also a lot of guilt linked to the Lovers card for a lot of readers. RuPaul said it best “If you can’t love yourself, how the hell you gonna love somebody else?” So, in my version, it’s a woman embracing a black dog and they’re embracing equally. I see that as a kind of a self-union.

6 lovers — Laura Dawe, *Pack of Dogs, Lovers card.* 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: Loving yourself first?

LD: Loving and accepting your shittiness. Which isn’t to say we shouldn’t all be trying to make sure our shittiness doesn’t spill into the world, but we also need to not punish ourselves for being human. Accepting because there’s no other way to make sure it’s accepted.

EAD: That’s super cool. The black dog stood out to me.

LD: They kind of represent our anxiety, (when) I say shadow self I mean that in the Jungian sense.

EAD: The things we don’t want to admit about ourselves.

LD: Even when we’re looking for it in analysis we sometimes can’t find (it) because of how much of our personality is a fortress that we build to protect ourselves from our humanity.

Someone offered me the tip of like if you want to get in touch with your shadow self, think about someone who sets your teeth on edge. Someone who stresses you out so much you find them so offensive and guaranteed the qualities you find so appalling in them are your shadow characteristics.

EAD: Oof, yes. The Tarot deck consists of 78 cards, each one containing an image or archetype. Did you approach each card with an idea in mind?

LD: The way that I did it was imagining I was this woman and she would have been travelling, so she would’ve been making one card at a time. I made most of the deck where I would be doing a reading for myself or someone else and then whatever cards I would pull I would then make those cards for my deck. It made it easier to remember the meanings because it was tied to a reading.

Also, it helped me try and communicate the meanings because I was applying it to a situation; I would find a way to express it to myself to make sense.

Like most Tarot decks it is based in many ways off of the Rider-Waite. There’s some of the cards that are pretty closely Rider-Waite and those are the earlier ones. I started to understand how to use my own voice the more that I made, some of them I would go back later and remake them so they’re much more my own thing.

LAURA DAWE bad dog wants to be good — Laura Dawe. *Bad Dog Wants to be Good.* Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: Were there any that were super hard to make?

LD: The Three of Wands, I do not know what that card means. Every single time I pull it I’m like “I’m going to look this up” which means I should really know. I really struggled to draw it because I don’t know. It’s a picture (of) a dog climbing some candles and there’s a chicken wing in front and it’s smiling. I feel like it’s a bit of meditation on the grass is greener mentality. When I say the grass is greener I kind of mean projections, the suit of Wands (is) a suit of manifestations, and so projection/manifestation (are) synonymous in some ways.

EAD: When you’re performing the Tarot readings does interacting with them bring them into your studio? You were making the cards after you read for someone, but now that the deck is completed and that’s what you’re using?

LD: Oh, I never read in the way that I read now until this deck was made. I would (read) in the way that anyone would read with their friends at a party. It was never the way that it is now where I am off book. I didn’t do that until I went to Foire Papier in Montreal; that acted like my deadline to get the deck finished. I read for people there and I was really scared. Of course, people loved it because it’s all about them.

EAD: It’s also such a unique experience in the art world, I think that being the artist and then sitting there and providing an intimate moment…

LD: A service?

EAD: A service but also a chance for intimacy because Tarot readings are so intimate.

LD: They’re extremely intimate. You pass small talk and you zoom past medium talk right into, “My Dad is dying.” And then you’re like, “What was your name again?” You hold intense eye contact with people, you don’t know what the card is going to say, you don’t know what is going on with them. It’s a profound privilege to get to communicate so deeply, so quickly and to feel so trusted.

12 hanged man — Laura Dawe, *Pack of Dogs The Sacred Pause* 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: Have any of the conversations you’ve had over the Tarot come back into your work?

LD: I guess everything does affect, who even knows what ways (things) manifest. I haven’t been painting really at all for a couple of months and I’m circling the studio, I need to make a bunch of paintings for the new year. I’ve been thinking about them, all the time, and prepping the studio. I’ll go in there, stare at the wall, build a canvas and then get freaked out and run away.

It’ll be interesting to see when these paintings start coming out, whether this kind of archetypal language (will appear). Those are the conversations you have with people, it’s the Major Arcana moments in their life. No one is rushing for Tarot reading if they don’t have big questions. The people who are first in line are heartbroken, they’re grieving, they’re moving, they’re falling in love, they’re stagnant in a way that feels unbearable, you know? I (am) curious to see.

19 sun — *Pack of Dogs, Sun Card.* 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: I look forward to seeing it too! I have another friend who reads Tarot and between readings, they put their deck on a milky hunk of selenite, to clear the energy. Do you have any rituals around your readings?

LD: I have a cloth I use, a piece of canvas, that I read on. Each of the elements in the deck represents an element in nature. So, I’ll light a candle for fire, anything works for earth, a flower, a grapefruit, whatever. I have a baby goblet that I’ll put some water or wine in, and then for wind, if we’re near an open window it’s okay. Otherwise, I might light an incense (to) activate the air a bit. I feel like it’s grounding, it grounds the reading a bit. It sets the tone and invites things to enter in equal amounts. Although the cards really typically just reflect what is exactly going on and what the person already knows.

EAD: Sometimes you need someone else to spell it out. What sort of rituals are built into your creative practice? What rituals do you have in the studio?

LD: I wish I knew! I want to become a structured person because I am wildly not. I clean the studio usually. If I haven’t been in there in a while the big ritual is to go in and re-organize and clean, see what’s there.

If I am really struggling to get into a painting, I’ll put on This American Life. It really brings me back to my studio so many times over the years. Ideally, I’ll be zoned into the work by halfway through the episode, and if I can’t get into some kind of flow by the end of the episode then I may have to give up.

15 devil — Laura Dawe, *Pack of Dogs, Devil Card.* 2019. Courtesy of the artist.

EAD: Okay, last question. Do you have a favourite card in the Tarot?

LD: Jeez, I mean if it’s something you want to pull, obviously, The Sun. Which is also the 19th card, which I am born on the 19th and 19 is lucky my number. I don’t know. I wouldn’t call it my favourite.

My first response was the Devil – it’s the card I pull the most. It has seen me through many different experiences [and] it has changed meaning for me many times. I think it has to do with addictive thinking and not being in control of our mental domain so it can be a reminder to me about checking in. If I pull the Devil then I need to personally pull a Hanged Man and take a bit of a spiritual step back and chill.
EAD: Put your head upside down and figure it out.

LD: Put my goddamn head upside down and take the Sacred Pause.

Pack Of Dogs Tarot Cards are available to purchase through the Likely General website.

^[1] Jaymi Elford, Tarot Inspired Life (Woodbury: Llewellyn Worldwide, 2019), 9.

SPRING/BREAK Art Show: Spiritual Art Advisory

Installation — *Spiritual Art Advisory, photo via Samuel Morgan Photography*

By Chloe Hyman

On March 5, SPRING/BREAK Art Show descended upon 866 United Nations Plaza, where it will remain in all its tangible, technicolor glory until Monday, March 11. Held annually during Armory Week in New York City, the show challenges the exclusivity of the art fair, providing no-cost exhibition space to emerging and established artists and curators. Its transformation of corporate and government space— this time at the United Nations, the dictionary definition of ‘government space’— is a sharp commentary on the underlying societal institutions that support an exclusionary art world.

IMG_6892 (1) — Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen, Photo by Christos Katsiaouni

Experimental art and curatorial practices always abound at SPRING/BREAK, but one particular exhibit caught my eye this year— the divinely opulent “Spiritual Art Advisory,” curated by Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen. The 22 featured artists in this exhibition have all contributed a work inspired by the Tarot’s Major Arcana, and their responses vary in medium and tone. Equally present in the space are the curators, Potter and Larsen, whose roles are not so easy to define. They are both exhibition conceptualizers and spiritual guides, inviting the viewer to engage spiritually with the works and to question Tarot’s magical potential. I spoke to them about their unique curatorial approach. Below are excerpts from our conversation:

Chloe Hyman: Sarah, tell me about your journey into magic(k) and your experience in the art world. What is your background as a curator?

Sarah Potter: Since I was a child, art and magic(k) have always been a part of my life. I have tried to run away from it but it always pulls me back in… I honestly cannot even imagine my life without these two important elements in it every day! I have a background in gallery work and event planning, so as the art world has evolved I have enjoyed evolving my business with it. I love curating experiences for visitors, connecting collectors to artwork that thrills them, and creating ephemeral experiences that last a moment but stay with a visitor forever.

CH: And Caroline, What is your background in the art world and your connection to Tarot?

Caroline Larsen: I am a painter and I also love to curate exhibitions! I am attracted to Tarot because of the beauty of the decks. Each deck that I looked at [while] doing research for the show was so beautiful that I wanted to make my own card and invite artists whose work I love and admire to make their own as well.

CH: How did you select the artists for this exhibition?

CL: Sarah and I worked on the list together. Some of the exhibiting artists have a tarot practice and others do not, but their work lends itself to the theme. It was really interesting to see how abstract artists interpreted the cards.

CH: How do you see the individual works as existing in dialogue with one another?

CL: Each artist picked a piece of work from the Major Arcana so we hung the exhibition based off of the order of the cards in the deck. All the work in the exhibition is so strong and so different that each work can stand on its own, but they work so lovely as a set too!

SP: Every artist really brought it, and I am so incredibly proud of how it all came together. Group shows can sometimes be chaotic or challenging, but this feels really harmonious and balanced.

CH: And are the artists all femme-identifying?

SP: There is a diverse mix of artist perspectives here. We didn’t set out to do an all-women show, we just wanted to show the highest quality work for our curation. I do not believe in curating all-women shows, [as] it feels a bit reductive, but I am drawn to a woman’s perspective and it’s important to me to provide a platform for women, now more than ever. I am not going to exclude men from my curatorial conversation in order to heighten the work of women artists. I honestly do not see how that is helping anyone. I just want to show the best quality of work!

CH: I realize my assumption that your exhibition centered femme artists comes from the fact that I only know womxn who practice magic(k). Why do you think womxn are so drawn to magic(k)?

SP: Witchcraft is intuitively guided, and I think women naturally tap into that energy more easily because of our societal constructs.

SP: Lala Abaddon really flipped the script on gender with her portrayal of the emperor, the card that embodies masculine energy. She chose to depict her emperor through a nude self-portrait! It’s a very powerful piece.

CH: I love the way Abbadon’s Emperor is hung between Langdon Grave’s Empress and the wall. What might originally have been a feminine/masculine dichotomy is muddied, the latter taking ‘masculine’ blue as its central hue but centering the female form. What emerges from that new relationship feels really pure, like the essence of each card has been removed from the gendered hands of history.

The relationship between these two works points to the exhibition’s strong curatorial presence. In many shows, the curation is felt rather than seen. The casual viewer may pass through and focus exclusively on the artwork itself, not considering the impact of space on the exhibition as a whole. But you are using the work of these artists to engage with visitors regarding their own spiritual needs. Your voices as ‘curator-healers’ are very noticeable in this relationship. Would you agree with this interpretation?

SP: I do agree! Thank you, you nailed it. I feel like the curator is almost the narrator of the story, curating the space and directing the flow of energy in the room through the selection and arrangement of the work. Each piece should enhance the overall story and add to the visual dialogue with a strong point of view.

caroline_larsen___-1552178889810 — *The Empress* by Langdon Graves

CH: Is visitor participation often a key element of your curatorial practices?

SP: Being an artist can be very solitary, [with] long days in the studio laboring alone. The work needs other eyes on it—it needs to be displayed and experienced by others. Once viewers can experience the work, the circle is completed and the work and its intentions is fully realized.

CH: Participatory art is definitely a strong theme here. What do you like about SPRING/BREAK? Have you ever exhibited or curated an exhibition here before?

CL: SPRING/BREAK is a pretty dynamic fair! It’s always moving to new locations and you never know what you’re going to get. I have shown work there as an artist twice, once at the post office location and once at Times Square. I have curated twice, once at Times Square and now at the UN Office.

SP: I love SPRING/BREAK! This is my third time curating an exhibition for this fair and it keeps getting better and better each year. I love that the [emphasis] is placed on curatorial concepts and radical vision. You feel it throughout the entire space. Ambre and Andrew have done an incredible job fostering such a creative environment—that authenticity is felt. My clients always tell me it is their favorite fair to collect work from and visit every year. Of course, that makes me happy to hear, too.

CH: What do you hope viewers will take away from the exhibition emotionally, spiritually, and intellectually?

SP: I hope viewers enjoy contemplating the imagery and symbolism of each card’s archetype and the way the artists interpreted each card. Playing with the fair’s curatorial theme of “Fact and Fiction,” I hope that viewers question the role of the Tarot and consider whether it has the divinatory ability to transcend realms and offer a magical peek into their own future.

* * *

Inspired by my conversation with Potter and Larsen, I decided to embark on my own spiritual journey within the exhibit. I chose four works that really spoke to me as if I’d drawn them from the deck myself. Then I spoke to each artist and allowed their words to inform my…potential destiny.

caroline_larsen___-1552178903306 — *Justice* by Kate Klingbeil

I started with Kate Klingbeil’s interpretation of Justice, which utilizes black sand, acrylic, watercolor, and vinyl to depict a winged Justice presiding over the people. Her body language is contradictory; while her left-hand rests gently on her breast, her right clenches an anthropomorphic sword. Tiny naked human figures dangle from the scales of justice, falling to the murky violet depths below. All the while she looks on peacefully, her eyes downcast, a small smile on her lips. Her serenity is opposed by an ominous eye, the whites of which are tinged a sickly pink, that ensnares the viewer’s gaze.

“I chose the justice card because it offered me a chance to meditate on balance and truth,” Klingbeil says. The artist based her depiction off the imagery in the Serravalle-Sesia Tarot—a late 19th-century Italian deck—but the swarm of tiny people climbing Justice are her own addition. They heighten the significance of the deity’s serene expression. “She remains unphased,” Klingbeil explains. Because she remains calm despite the tumultuous scene below her, “we have to believe that truth will prevail.”

caroline_larsen___-1552178913750 — *The Star* by Margot Bird

Next I pulled the Star, interpreted by Margot Bird with acrylic paint, epoxy putty, and gold leaf. I was drawn to its kitsch factor, the way aliens, poodles, and pastel hues could someway come together to create something that registers as divine. I fully believed in the existence of these poodle-human hybrid creatures, and I acknowledged that they danced beside the sun, pouring stars to the whirlpool below. Perhaps the sheer abundance of pastel hues created a strange cohesion that rendered itself supernaturally Other.

Or maybe Bird has translated the essence of the truly divine Star into something comprehensible for the human mind. “I feel like [The Star] represents bursts of creativity, inspiration, and optimism,” says Bird. She emphasized anything that passed through her mind that felt new and untouched, like “those feelings of sudden inspiration and positivity.” The inclusion of aliens speaks to her strong desire to share, and so these creatures receive cups of star water, receiving the creativity and happiness she feels inside.

Third I chose Strength, depicted with grace by Hiba Schahbaz. In this mixed-media work, crafted with gouache, watercolor, gold leaf, and tea, a woman sits nose-to-nose with a lion, naked as he. The serenity of both creatures feels a bit ambiguous. Perhaps the woman shows strength to sit so calmly with a predatory carnivore. Or maybe the harmony of the two beings engenders a different kind of strength, a power not measured through action or brute force, but through connection and understanding and taking the time to find peace and resolve differences.

“I love the harmony between the lion and the lady,” says Schahbaz. “It gives me a feeling of being connected to my best self. There is no fear, just perfection.” The artist’s words suggest the lion as a kind of self-portrait, a reflection of the inner self as a powerful lion, strong yet never impulsive. “A sense of protection, perseverance, grace, and love,” she adds.

Jen Dwyer Temperance _5 — *Temperance* by Jen Dwyer

Lastly, I come to Temperance, sculpted by Jen Dwyer, whose ceramic contribution to the deck exhibits similar dichotomies of darkness and lightness. Her ornamented black vases are humanoid, black hands emerging from the clay to tighten around their necks. Or are they resting gently in a soft embrace? The presence of rope winding its way around the bodies of the vases suggests the former, but there is something very meditative about them nonetheless that suggests peace.

“The temperance card is all about balance, which I interpreted as a form of self-care,” Dwyer explains. “I’ve been thinking about the Audre Lorde quote, ‘Caring for myself is not self-indulgence, it is self-preservation, and that is an act of political warfare.’” The artist’s words reinforce the presence of both tension and peace in her work. What strikes me is the agency the hand represents in deciding whether it will be used for self-harm or self-care. “I’m definitely pointing the finger at myself,” she says. “I could get a lot better at taking some space from the studio.”

SPRING/BREAK is open through Monday, March 11^th. Stop by E25 to ponder your own future. Sarah Potter and Caroline Larsen will be close by if you need a spiritual guide.