The Fool

I have decided, dear Reader, though I cant recall why, to paint the 78 cards of the Tarot. I am a fool on this journey. I know nothing to begin which is the best place to begin in this particular journey. I will seem a fool to all who know anything about tarot and they are right to think me so!. In fact everything that I think I know I will cast aside so that all new knowledge comes into an empty vessel all the more ready to be filled. I am the devine fool but i am the banal fool....The fool is 'number' zero. They are nothing and they are everything. How do you go from 0 to one? How do you make that jump, to start that journey? there is an infinite distance from 0 to one, to the starting line, but the fool doesn't know they have to get past infinity and so they just step out, off the cliff and somehow onto the path . Is that the original spark of God, the act of creating something from nothing? The first touch of color in a blank canvas? It is true creation! the creation of something from nothing that starts this art journey. So start with 0, be the fool. In this journey into magical archeism, diging into the past of these cards. Why do humans need divination? Why do we resonate with the images and archetypes that we choose? Why do we depict these archetypes in images then ask them to guide us in our lives? At the beginning…and the end…is the fool.

This fool harkens back to Mithraic times. According to Stephan Flowers in The Magian Tarok, the philosophies of the mithraic soldiers are evident in the images. So his ears are those of a bull and, being the fool that he is with his knife upside down, he sacrifices himself! What a blessed fool! All such explorations are a sacrifice. My non-binary model is my non-binary child ( I am still in shock that they agreed to pose- on the roof, in the low sunlight!). They hold the innocent white rose and step out on their journey, their dog by their side. Honestly, dear reader, I didn’t want to paint this dog! I may change it later. Monkey? (yup-that came about) But dogs are a repeating symbol in the tarot, and you know how I love a good symbol! (monkies are a great symbol as well- mischievous and clever). In his hobo bag is everything the fool will need on their journey (whats in the bag? you tell me! It does seem to be glowing…). The most foolish (and yet amazing) think I have ever done, was to backpack down to the base of the grand canyon, spend the night, and hike back out, all in 117 degree weather. It gets hotter as you go down fyi. It was off the thermometer at the bottom. We lay in the shade in the water eating salty food…all night…Two people died that first day from heat stroke there…so…pretty foolish. The reference photo is from that day. The frame of the painting is the sky and the land and the water (foreshadowing “the Star”?) On the cliff side are the painted hands of our early ancestors, taken from caves in Patagonia. Were they shamans? Artists? My hand is there too as I go on this spiritual artistic journey.

original oil painting on wood in upcycled frame 30" x 20" original available