To further my personal understandings of the cards, as well as supplement the little white book I send out with the decks (until the eventual release of the Ellis decK companion book) as well as a break from the graphic novel I'm working on presently, I thought it would be fun to start posting cards and talking about them a bit here in the blog.  I'm taking the first one from my Card of the Day on the Ellis decK app which I like to use as a study prompt myself.

The young person in all of us that rolls their eyes at everything. Often when we have something good go on for long enough, be it a job, relationship, project, or influence, we get so used to it that we take it for granted. After we take it for granted long enough, we can get sick of it or lose our appreciation for it. Something shiny and inspiring no longer has the novelty it once did. Maybe we used to love iced cream and get excited about it, but then we started eating it every day. Then we moved from surprise to expectation to boredom. From boredom, we move into a careless apathy, not sure what to do with ourselves. In a culture where we constantly get new everything thanks to our technology, many of us think this is the best way to be: the first kid on the block to be "over it." The fourth cup could be the ensuing stomach ache after too much of a good thing. The good news is this knock on the head should inspire us into doing something different.

This card is the standstill that happens to the uninspired. Looking at the same things over and over again, and searching for motivation in what has already been done, a stagnation occurs. The futility of trying to get inspired can be just as maddeningly dull as the boredom itself if we stick to what we already know. Especially if we're taking it for granted. The fourth cup will usually come and knock over our untidy kingdom enough to get things moving again. 

The misfortune here isn't that we may get a knock on the head. The problem is we've gotten lazy. When thinking on this card, we consider where in life we feel like a know-it-all and we've stopped listening.

Toward the end of last year, I had the pleasure of receiving and email from  author and storyteller Thomas L. Freese, who had seen the Eliis decK and was interested in writing a review for it. I think he does a fantastic job writing up the deck, and in addition he included a short interview he conducted with me over email at the end. I think this answers some good questions about the design and inspirations that went into the deck.
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The Ellis deck by Taylor Ellis Copyright Taylor Ellis 2013
Price:  $45 for the boxed 78 card set with booklet
The Ellis deck can be purchased from HYPERLINK "http://www.ellistrations.net"www.ellistrations.net and is available also as a smart devices app.
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Review by Thomas Freese
The colorful box measures approximately 2 7/8” x 4 7/8” x 1inch. The cards each are 2 3/4” x 4 ¾” with rounded edges, and having a black and white symmetrical design on the back of each card. The cards each are thick enough and coated for regular use.
The booklet is black and white staple bound, approximately 5 ½” x 8 ½”, 24 double side/printed pages.
The Instruction Booklet is titled The Ellis Deck:  Re-Imagined Archetypes of the Traditional Tarot and is very complete for a humble little book. As an artist and reader, I very much appreciate reading about the back story of the creation of a deck, influences and also being given sample layouts that are new to me. The booklet includes:  Forward, Some Words from the Author, Introduction, What is Tarot?, Major and Minor Arcana?, Is the Tarot Really a Taboo?, Can the Future Really be Told with Cards?, Getting Started, Beginning a Reading, Where to Read?, Tarot Card, Flow of the Reading, Basic Card Meanings (The Major and Minor Arcana), on Reading Reversals, and finishing with some blank pages for Notes.
Interested parties can order, from the author/artist, a large print of any card of the Ellis deck. The individual card meanings are not only found in the booklet, but appear on the website as well.
The Ellis deck has direct correspondence with what would be considered a traditional tarot deck with the 22 major arcana and 56 minor arcana in the standard four suits—cups, swords, pentacles and wands—appearing as rods. Much artistic talent and work was crafted into the organization and appearance of the colors, primary figures, as well as the accompanying symbols and coherent design overall. Mr. Ellis has solid experience providing illustration and poster art, and the design has a stylized line and color that is almost retro-Art Deco.
There are more than sufficient background elements to take the eye around the card on a visual tour of figure and the intriguing companion images. For example, the rods not only appear as wooden wands but have green terminations and are further topped by flames. My interest was also drawn to the four creatures that often appear across the minor arcana suit of ace through tens. Many of the rod cards show a fox, the cups often sport a seahorse, the pentacles sometimes display a boar and the some of the sword cards involve a raven.
I tried the three spreads given in the booklet—Four Card Daily Spread, the Horseshoe Spread, and the Glass Bead Game Spread. They all worked for me, although with number of cards, the G.B.G. Spread, which uses 11 cards in a circular pattern, I’ll have to try and take some more time to experiment with and learn the nuances of each position’s significance.
Perhaps the author/artist will publish a more complete book at a later date, detailing greater information about the symbols and art in the background of many of the cards. I’m curious about the concentric circle with planetoid spheres which appears above the head of the figure in The Chariot. The Magician is mesmerizing, with floating trees around a praying mantis figure and tiny dragon above forming the symbol for infinity. The Tower is sliced by a Saturn-like yellow ring emanating from the sun, while a tsunami roars in from the ocean.
A tarot deck which is useful provides internal clarity, which the Ellis deck does with flair and creative interpretation. But going beyond useful, I find a deck which the eye or hand picks out of the half dozen decks on the reader’s table, to be used again and again, also provides compelling visuals which draw us in. Furthermore, completing a trifecta of appeal, the Ellis deck weaves curious image after image in nearly every card, giving both reader and querent a rich and workable library of metaphor for intuitive interpretation, over many years of pleasurable use.

Thomas’s first tarot deck in 1979 was a Christmas gift from his mother. Thomas is an experienced tarot and palm reader. He also reads from objects and photos. In addition he has authored 10 books on metaphysical topics and is a Licensed Professional Clinical Counselor and Board Certified, Registered Art Therapist.

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Bonus! Thomas interviewed Taylor Ellis via email:


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Ellis:  I'm glad you're enjoying the artwork. I suppose in a lot of ways the motivation for creating a deck is expanding upon the enjoy-ability of the already existing Tarot. I'm glad you liked the booklet as well. Eventually, the deck will have a companion book, but that won't be out for some time. I've barely scratched the surface of writing it. I'd love to hear your experience with the bead-game spread—that is the primary spread I use with my clients, especially when getting to know them.
I'd be happy to answer your questions as best as I can…



Freese: How would you describe the style of your artwork for the deck? It appears almost stylized combined with post-Deco elements?



Ellis: Maybe "Flat-Art-Deco-Comic"?   It's a personal style I came up with as a graphic designer playing with shapes and color in adobe illustrator. Before I ever added textures to the art, depth was suggested by darker and lighter colors. Sometimes it would involve playfully creating curves and then seeing how I could make the image I needed to out of it. There was lots of trial and error in getting a picture to work. I think some people think drawing on the computer is easier because things like the difficulty of getting a straight line or a perfect curve are taken care of, but there is a whole different set of challenges to make a drawing that looks like you want it to. 



Freese: There appear certain animals connected with certain suits. It looks like fox in rods, boars in pentacles, ravens with swords, seahorse in cups. Would you like to comment on the choice of those animals and how/why they go with the suits?



Ellis: Overall, I picked animals that thrive in the elements of their suits. Or in the case of the fox, simply have a heavy association with the element. I wanted each one to match the mood of what I feel like each suit is about as well.
For the Rods, which deal with the Fire element, I felt the crafty, clever, playful Fox was a good mascot. The Japanese call the Fox spirits "Kitsune" and the older and more powerful they grow, the more tails they gain. I thought that went really well with a person growing their spiritual/creative side with the Rods. The Fox is also known as a trickster, and like fire, you had better keep your eye on it.
For the Pentacles and the Earth element, I went with a Boar because they really seem to be a solid, sturdy creature. They can be domesticated into hogs, or exist as a formidable inhabitant of the wild kingdom. The Pentacles are such a material matter, but I don't think they always relate directly to money, but to your resources and how you relate to them. Whether it's an animal you care for, or something you encounter in the woods, you have to respect the Boar.
For the Swords and the Air element, I chose the Raven. Birds, naturally, cut through the air and ravens seem to give people the same sense of beauty and simultaneously the willies that they get when they see a Sword card. Oftentimes, when swords come up in a reading and people say, "Oh dear, swords!" I think as we work through the Sword suit, we lose a certain sense of innocence and illusion and the Raven is there to mourn with us. It seems morbid, but we are on the way to greater things.
For the Cups and Water element, I picked the Seahorse. Since the Water element is our emotions, the playful Seahorse seemed perfect. The idea of empathy and emotional well-adjustment seems to illustrate itself in the fact the male seahorse is the one that carries the young. Also, you may have noticed the Seahorse is a significantly less present animal compared to the others, because the emotions become something more internal and we place them less on others as we mature.



Freese:  A number of the figures have more than two arms—Shiva like; could you comment on that, (the devil, the magician—looks like an insect—praying mantis perhaps, and judgment).

Ellis: "Shiva-like" is a pretty good analysis. One thing that I really like about the Hindu and Tantric Buddhist artwork is how the multiple arms don't necessarily represent someone having more than one set of arms. It's more of a less-temporal viewpoint.  In one moment of illustration, we are able to see the actions and symbols that the subject represents. The Magican blows our minds with everything he is able to do, and it is all because we don't see all the time he has put into them. The Devil reflects the magician, misusing all that skill and lacking the set of arms in the spiritual pose.



Freese:  Oftentimes swords are made more real with the appearance of the color red, as in blood, depicted on them; would you like to talk about that?



Ellis: Yes. I wanted to use the rusty texture to show the age and reality of the swords. They have been used and they are older than we are. A lot of times, Swords come up because we must surrender to a convention that was put into place that we didn't have any say in. That doesn't necessarily mean that the convention is good, but for us to keep going, a little compliance is needed. Or we decide this is the time to stand our ground and fight. Either way, the sword is bloodied. The King keeps his sword sheathed in his lap, because he has been there, done that, lost an eye, and he's not getting the sword back out unless there is no other way.



Freese: I am curious about the figure of the rabbit, which is the hanged man.



Ellis: Hah, ok, here we go! There were a lot of different reasons that happened. In the Hanged Man, we have reality shift completely all the way around. We have a new way of looking at things. That has always seemed very "Alice in Wonderland" to me. The blue rabbit plays a bit of homage to the white rabbit.
A few days before starting the Hanged Man, I was talking to a friend who told me that to him the Hanged Man seemed "snagged in a trap" and I thought about a jackrabbit hanging upside down from a rope trap reflecting about how he got there.
Another reason was in the idea of someone having a "trip" whether it is a psychedelic episode or someone having a profound experience where they are just out of their head. They could be napoleon, or a bunch of bananas, or as I choose, a rabbit. They aren't identified with their idea of themselves for just a moment and they can see things in a light that they aren't casting themselves. It's not something they could or should get in the habit of repeating, but it's unstuck their mind for a short while.



Freese: Is that a cat on the card back? What’s up with the thorns?



Ellis: It IS a cat. When I first started studying the Tarot, I would lock myself up in my room to get engrossed as possible without disturbance. I live in a communal situation with some other artists, so there's always something to distract you. My desk was right under one of the windows in my room, and one night I look up and there is a black cat looking right in at me and my cards. It looks at me, it looks at my cards, and it looks at me again and then it just walks away. The incident stayed with me and when it was time to do the back of the cards, it just seemed like a fun personal thing to add.
The "thorns" are just little leaves on the trees. Also looking out my window is a mess of vegetation. I like how you saw thorns though. That kind of leads me to an interesting phenomenon I've enjoyed since the cards have been out in the world for a little while now. I get emails from time to time asking me about things I never intended to be an image on the card, for example, I've had more than one email about the "writing" on the eight of swords card. The thing is, there isn't any writing on the card, but the spider web binding the young woman's arms and legs has resembled writing to more than one person. It's kind of thrilling, because you realize that you've definitely created an object for divination when people can project unintended imagery into the art.

"I'm not used to seeing you all butched up!" was the soundbite from yesterday. There was that tiny voice telling me the gig was up. I obviously wouldn't be thought of as a reader with any kind of credibility without my wizard-like beard I had been growing.

Growing until recently, that is. About a week ago, I went under the scissors. It started off innocently enough, one of my lovely housemates was giving me a haircut, and she got down to the facial hair. I told her to go ahead and give it a bit of a trim, and in my mind I was thinking a snip here, a snip there, and *BAMF*, done. What happened before I could speak was the scissors came awfully close to the face, and then, "snip." It was too late. What was once a length of bushy hair coming from my right cheek was freshly trimmed grass. The only thing left to do at that point is go with it. In a short while, a year's worth of beard was gone.
    So now, I have a much shorter, neater, so-much-nicer-in-the-summertime beard with a bit of moustache for fun. It looks good! My mom of all people will be ecstatic (she's hated the beard) and everything seemed great until I thought for a moment "Oh yeah, didn't I look much wiser, older, and capable of divination with that crazy looking beard?" I really did think this for a moment. I started to worry.
    A lot of my peers in the Tarot world put a lot of stock into appearance. That is because people in general put a lot of stock into appearance. There are quite a few readers who go through great pains to look like they're gypsies with a cart parked around the corner and you know what? They look good doing it! I understand this and I can respect this. Many, many readers work as entertainers reading at parties and they had darn better look like a reader is supposed to look.
    I do most of my readings by private appointment and I don't see myself putting together a resume to hand to party planners. I just can't do it. I know my Tarot and I can tell you what is says and I don't try to scare you into coming back for weekly installments. I'm just little old me and I'm pretty good at reading cards. So, I surprised myself when I suddenly felt insecure without the beard. It had become a real moment of the Tower. Something material had fallen away and what was left behind was the Real ol' World.
    Before I found myself totally unrooted, and trying to glue hair back on, I took a moment to think back to my first reading. There I was, in the same room I use now, but totally green. My friend who let me practice on her was good enough to let me use the book Psychic Tarot, for every card. She didn't even mind when I went back over the book AGAIN, when re-explaining the cards. In the end, it was a pretty disjointed experience, but we had gotten down to the bottom of the spread. All I needed was my brain and my gut (and yeah, that book) and the ability to go with the flow.
    The Tower is usually in reference to something a bit more dire than a sudden change in appearance, but when reading, you have to remember that from the perspective of your Querrent, the molehill may be doing the mountain routine. In my case, I related to the Tower card because I felt like I'd lost my "Dumbo Feather." (If you don't remember the story, Dumbo thought the whole reason he could fly had to do with the possession of a feather he had gotten from some blackbirds and then he lost it.) The Universe finds funny ways to teach us lessons when we lose sight of ourselves. Maybe I needed a better look behind all that hair to remember where I was coming from. After all, the best lesson the Tower gives us is we didn't need what we lost.
   
   

    So, In theory, I'm writing a book right now. This is to be the companion book for the Ellis Deck and it is meant to go deeper into the card meanings than I do here on the website, as well as in the deck's booklet. If things go right, there will be a bit more of the story aspect and I'm hoping my personal musings on the cards will keep it from being ANOTHER sterile book of meanings. To be fair, I love sterile books of fixed meanings, I usually leave the bookstore with at least one per visit. I'm just hoping this book has a little more flavor to it.
    On top of that, I'm trying to get things in order for the next run of the decks. Trying to find the correct-size mailing envelopes, figure out shipping prices, getting a P.O. box, all these things need to get done. On top of that, I just typed "On Top of That" again, I didn't even look up at the top of this paragraph to see I've already used that piece of language. This probably means I've depleted my "Writer's Chi" for the rest of the evening, and I'll probably move on to a more passive activity after this.
    In all this "To-Do," it doesn't hurt to invoke the Knight of Pentacles. This is the Knight who gets the work done. He's interested in moving something from the "talking about an idea" realm into the "something you can see with your eyes and touch with your hands" realm. He's not afraid of the work it takes to do this and is eager to prove it can be done. If you are in a situation with a lot of talkers with no results, the Knight of Pentacles rode on a long time ago.

Since he's a Knight of Few Words, I'll cut the talking and save the rest of the writing for the book....for now.

    Coming back from B.A.T.S. with no more decks was a big thrill, but it also meant I have a lot of work to do. I've been researching print prices, figuring out the best way to sell the cards through the site once the order gets here, and increasing my internet presence a little bit. 
    For example, The Ellis Deck now has a Facebook Page of its own. As much as I have begun to feel that Facebook is a never-ending dump of brain garbage, it is the never-ending dump of brain garbage people are paying attention to fairly consistently. It's kind of the default go-to for the common bored internet user. 
    The Three of Rods is our work gaining attention. This can be an active or passive role. Perhaps people take notice of our work independently of any advertising or posting. This work just shines bright enough. 
    Problem being, we live in an age of a LOT going on. Driving down a highway full of billboards, Scrolling down the feed of your Facebook, or checking out a local paper for upcoming shows, there are a tons of things trying to stand out as the activity, service, or purchase worthy of YOU! In order to win that attention (yeah, I'm afraid it's a contest) the Three of Rods means we have to be sure there is someone around when that tree falls.
    With either passive or active role being taken, it is the three behaving as the foundation (allbeit a wobbly three-legged stool) that holds our work higher for public notice. Whatever we have done, the right people are starting to see it. So as I set my intention for work earlier this was the card I pulled out to stare at for inspiration.

FanTASTIC photo thanks to Rhombi Survivor's "Float" series. (disclaimer: I do not levitate during readings)

   This is a Repost of a Front Page Entry I made last week, this site will be slowly evolving to have a blog as the front page. Thank you for tolerating all the flux - :)
     First of all, a big thank-you to everyone who purchased one of the first one hundred decks. The time spent on the project was not without some antagonizing moments where I wasn't sure I would be selling ten decks.
    I owe a second big thank-you to Thalasa Therese and the Daughters of Divination group for having me so very last minute to the Bay Area Tarot Symposium or B.A.T.S. This was a wonderful opportunity to get the Ellis Deck out of the Dallas bubble and into the world of Tarot readers from all over the country. The cards got such enthusiastic reception that the idea I had ever doubted myself seemed silly. By the end of the conference, I had sold my last deck!
    Being my first symposium, and being a young and eager vendor, I spent most of my time glued to my seat at the vendor table. Fortunately, that did not limit my experience in making contact with some very interesting people. If you are a card reader and wish to expand your knowledge of cards through classes, exposure to new materials, and incredible converstations, you cannot go wrong with this annual event.

For anyone that has purchased The Ellis Deck, I present to you its missing booklet. I am grateful for everyone who had the patience to look online at my site for card meanings and reading techniques. I am happy to send anyone already owning a deck a copy of the booklet for their use.
The booklet contains a foreward from my mentor John "Ashley" Bellamy, some words from myself, a brief introduction to the Tarot, a How-to for three tarot spreads, and brief interpretations of each card.

A larger companion book is in the works. I'm looking forward to fleshing out the card meanings and doing a bit more storytelling.

    My first run (and possibly some of the subsequent runs) of the Ellis Deck is without the little booklet that comes along with a lot of tarot decks. The main reason for this is I'm fortunate enough to have been able to afford the 100 I've printed to this point for the show 78 On Deck I'll be doing with friend and fellow artist Phillip McVean. This did not leave me the revenue for additional printing.
    My solution is that on the back of each tuckbox my Tarot Decks are packaged in, is a referral to my website for card meanings and techniques for reading.
    What that meant, is that I'll be writing 78 meanings to go with my cards. This started as kind of a dry process. I spent time writing words, and symbols that come to mind when I thought of each card. As I had enough done to review, I felt like this has been done. There are plenty of websites covered in card meanings, and that I would have been better off recommending one of those sites. After a walk, some coffee, a few conversations, and a trip back to my desk for the day, I had a new plan.
    I had a story in mind while I was creating the Major Arcana cards for my deck. It went along with the basic tarot story, but I put my own accents on it, and wanted to make it a little meatier than what had come in the booklet with decks I had collected in the past. Now, the process has gone from standard definitions, to short story paragraphs and has become a lot more fun to do. As the show gets closer and the printing of the posters is being done and the mockup of the gallery is coming together, this has become a wonderful second project to let me feel creative even during this left-brain period of the process.