After completing the last assemblage at the end of December, I took January off from the Tarot of Bones so I could focus on some other projects. Now it’s February, and time for me to get to the most intimidating part of this whole process: photography. I am an amateur photographer at best, and even with a DSLR it’s been a learning curve just getting to the point where I am. However, I have books and I have people willing to give advice, so I have my little kluged-up setup ready to go and I’m hoping for the best! Wish me luck!

Death is quite possibly one of the most infamous cards in the tarot. While it certainly can mean the impending (or past) death of a person or other beloved being, it also frequently refers to any other sort of major, often sudden, change. I chose a rattlesnake skull for the center of this piece as people often fear serpents more than they really need to, focusing on the venomous fangs rather than all the environmental benefits snakes bring, and the fact that the snake is often more afraid of them than vice versa. The shed snakeskin on the background signifies the positive elements of this card: through change you’re able to leave behind old things you’ve outgrown and can move on to a better phase in your life. Reversed, this card may be telling you that you’re unnecessarily digging your heels in when it comes to accepting change. Let things go as they will; you’ll be better for it in the end.

This is the longest I’ve gone without completing a Tarot of Bones assemblage piece since I began back in January, and it feels nice to be back. Part of why I pushed myself earlier in the year to get ahead of schedule was because I knew Labor Day weekend, and the weeks leading up to it, would be entirely dedicated to splitting my art vending booth between two of my bigger events of the year, and I didn’t want to fall too far behind. We’re just about halfway through September, and this is the 62nd assemblage completed out of 79 (including the Happy Squirrel). That gives me 16 weeks to complete 17 assemblages, so I’m actually still pretty well on target.

The Six of Swords is another one of those not-fun-but-necessary cards of the tarot. when it pops up in a reading it frequently means a journey you don’t want to take but have to anyway (though in some cases it just means a nice boat ride is in your future!) Reversed, you could be trying to escape your past and turn over a new leaf, but the old leaf’s not letting that happen just yet and you have some business to attend to yet.

Stylistically, this is something of a departure from the rest of the deck so far (it’s the 56th assemblage completed). For one thing, the stark, distressed background is different from my usual tendency toward lush, earthy colors and multiple textures. More notably, this is the only pip so far to feature a portion of a skull. It’s a fragment of a whitetail doe skull with six molars still embedded in it; it’s also the only bone in the entire deck so far that I’ve painted on. The skulls of the Majors and Courts are kept clean to showcase them in their own right; here, though, the skull fragment is simply a piece of set dressing to give further meaning to the teeth themselves, which are unpainted.

Also, my beloved mentioned yesterday that he wouldn’t be surprised if I revisited some of the pieces once I have all 78 (plus the Happy Squirrel) completed. I hadn’t really thought about it, but we’ll see if I do indeed update any of them. There’s a careful balance that has to be struck between fine-tuning, and being able to release a project into the wild. That’s a big reason why I created a production schedule–this is a big enough project as it is without letting myself fall into years of procrastination and perfectionism. Still, with just 22 cards plus the extra single left to create, I’m getting a strong sense of the cohesive style of this deck, and I may need to nudge a few more details into place to help tie it together better.