The past couple of weeks have been a crazed whirlwind of activity, travel, and face to face time with a lot of good people. I spent a long weekend in San Jose for PantheaCon, and then turned right back around and headed to Seattle so I could vend at MythicWorlds, this past weekend. I’ve been missing my art space pretty badly, though, so as soon as I woke up yesterday I did some de-cluttering of supplies and got back to work on the Tarot of Bones.

I came out of my artwork frenzy today with two new assemblage pieces in the Swords suit–the Ace and the Knight. The tooth for the Ace is a domestic horse incisor; these teeth start the process of eating much-needed food for many mammals, and I felt they matched the Ace of Sword’s notes of decision-making and taking opportunities as they arise. The frame was an unfinished Ikea piece that I got at the Goodwill outlet; I stained the wood with acrylic paint, and prettied up the background with some secondhand decorative paper. The incisor is poised over a pile of hay, ready to nip into the food to keep the horse alive.

I chose a common snapping turtle skull for the Knight of Swords because of its swift and merciless bite. As with other Court cards in the Swords suit, the jaw is detached to show this card has comparatively less power than the Major Arcana skulls, which all have their jaws detached. Still, it serves to show off the snapper’s fearsome beak. The mossy background and trim of this card’s backboard are deceptively placid; this is a card of much energy and movement when the right opportunity–or prey–presents itself.