Sapphic Enchantress Tarot Deck

“I created the Sapphic Enchantress Tarot Deck with the intention of creating a card system that could resonate with people of marginalised genders and sexual orientations. The deck consists exclusively of women, a deliberate expression of the intrinsic wholeness of women within themselves. This deck explores not only the love that can exist between women but also the strength that exists in women themselves. The prominent depiction of sapphic women situated in natural settings is a subtle response to the homophobic reduction of queer love and intimacy to something that is ‘unnatural.’ I attempted to express our truth—that not only are we not ‘unnatural’ but we are, in fact, nature within ourselves.
     “The way I depict women in these cards is a statement against the mainstream symbolic violence that is wrought upon women through their representation in ways that would appeal to the male gaze—and that reduce them to responding to that gaze. My representations aim to give women the power and self-confidence to feel at home in their bodies, in the many shapes and sizes in which they exist, without the demonisation of natural and common features such as body fat, body hair, cellulite, stretch marks, and scars. I also created a zine based on my research into Tarot and my own Tarot practice, detailing key meanings of each card (upright and reversed), analysis of Tarot symbolism and imagery, and guidelines for how to read and use the cards.
     “Pamela Colman Smith was born in London, England, in 1876 to American parents. She spent her lifetime in New York and Jamaica and passed away in 1951. In the duration of her career, she illustrated calendars, posters, and books and also worked in miniature theatre and painting. She also illustrated some literary works including Yeats’s poetry and even her own writing. Unfortunately, however, her work on the Rider-Waite Tarot deck is the only project she is remembered for—and even her success in creating this deck has been overridden and erased, with the deck being named after its male commissioner rather than its artist. In creating a Tarot deck which centres women in the narrative, I hoped to pay tribute to artists such as Smith, contributing to a feminist struggle in opposition to a misogynistic art culture that serves artists like her with such great injustice. I was inspired by Smith’s use of composition, the balanced framework and the envelopment of the central figure in imagery which so perfectly represents the cards’ meanings. I carried this aesthetic into my own Tarot deck while layering it with a new political context.”