Despite not being a particularly joyful card, full of challenges and self-detriment and the like, the Eight of Swords was fun to sculpt. It’s hard to tell from the picture (I need to get a better one for the deck), but the gray stone walls on either side of the piece are 3-D sculpted epoxy putty, with coyote teeth sunk into them like gnashing fangs ready to bite down on the journeyer going through the narrow pass. The piece is about 2″ deep, so I need to adjust my settings to capture the depth. I’m not an especially good photographer; the camera’s been doing most of the work for me. But this is a good piece for me to practice on so the final shot will be a better one.

So I just realized that I am over 1/3 of the way done with the assemblage pieces! The Eight of Swords is my 28th assemblage piece completed, which puts me a bit ahead of schedule. (26 is the 1/3-of-the-way point, and the end of April is 1/3 of the way done with the year.) So hooray for that! I’m already plotting the next assemblage piece, in between taking time out for other artwork.

We also hit a little sadder milestone–yesterday was the first day that I didn’t have a single new backer on the Tarot of Bones IndieGoGo campaign! Okay, so I’m not really all that upset because for pity’s sake, it’s 157% funded today and there are 22 days left! Still, backers dropped off a lot once we hit the initial $5,000 asking level, and it’s been mostly a trickle of 1-2 new people per day. The fact that we got halfway through the campaign before getting a no-backer day is really impressive, and again I’m really appreciative to all of those who have chipped in!

That being said, if you have not yet backed the campaign, or you know people who may be interested, now’s a great time to back it and get the word out! We’re just $170 away from $8,000–and once we hit $9,000 we’ll achieve our next stretch goal. And I’m still quite a ways away from being able to break even on the production costs for this deck (though materials are covered and I have a nice chunk of money to put toward the aforementioned expenses). So the more we raise on this campaign, the easier it’ll be for me to make sure the Tarot of Bones gets into everyone’s hands in Summer 2016! Here’s that campaign link again, and thank you 🙂