This Deck was not planned,
nor conceptualized.
It just happened.
This site specific oracle deck was birthed in an old Ranch house located in Homestead Valley/ California’s Mojave Desert / Unceded territory of the Chemehuevi, Serrano, and Shoshone people.
Objects, creatures, and plants hold symbols that may offer insight to questions, concerns, or curiosities. While spending 9 months living alone in an old house, I experienced a number of phenomena which bled into dreams, intense illness, and awakenings which have manifested within these drawings, and the sharing of them.
When a rat entered into this home on a cool spring evening, I was triggered, remembering an unseen moment concerning the death of my late father. Because I did not have a vessel for capturing the rat, I hid in my room and began to cope the only way I knew how- I sat and drew 45 illustrations connected to this home.
I awoke the following morning to find my indoor plants and seedlings destroyed, and Robert Pierce’s Alchemical Tarot spread all throughout the house. For the next week, this became my morning routine...picking up the spread out Tarot deck. When I opened the cupboard this packrat had been nesting in, I found a single tarot card propped up in a pot alongside a piece of broccoli, and an avocado pit...the Knight of Vessels.
After over two weeks of cohabitation with the rat, my boundaries became clearer after being crossed again and again. I hesitated, tip-toeing around confrontation. One evening I burst through my bubble of fear with Rat, holding a 5 gallon bucket. “Either you choose to get into this bucket right now, or I will begin to use kill traps because you have crossed a boundary.” Rat heard me, I know. At that moment, I did not succeed in capturing Rat in Bucket, however that evening the rat had chewed a hole through the window screen and jumped out. We became friendly neighbors after Rat chose the old swamp cooler outside as the new home.
The Rat is the trigger, and the drawings are the processing of the trigger. I learned to use the direct environment as a grounding practice during a few major moments in my life. First, during a 3 month solitude project in tierra del fuego, and another was during my 9 months spent at Dhamma Dena Meditation Center. The body of artwork I create is rooted in land-based practices where I work with the soil, minerals, plants and sounds from my direct environment. At the time of creating this deck, I was working with a somatic experience practitioner who was helping me to viscerally access the traumas hidden beneath my triggers. The Rat is a symbol cross culturally and to me this being is an important messenger within my subjective story. This being has allowed me to see into the subconscious in order to reveal what has been suppressed. Expansion, healing and realization result from creating a relationship with the trigger rather than suppressing it.
The first limited edition of 18 decks were hand printed in Northern New Mexico on unceded territory of Ute and Pueblo people. Each card was woodblock carved, ink was crafted from wildfire charcoal, and 5 of those decks were printed on handmade paper from my own post consumer waste. Through this project, the magick of paper making was shared with communities in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. I have also hand-poke tattled these original drawings on multiple bodies to fund my artistic hermitage
nor conceptualized.
It just happened.
This site specific oracle deck was birthed in an old Ranch house located in Homestead Valley/ California’s Mojave Desert / Unceded territory of the Chemehuevi, Serrano, and Shoshone people.
Objects, creatures, and plants hold symbols that may offer insight to questions, concerns, or curiosities. While spending 9 months living alone in an old house, I experienced a number of phenomena which bled into dreams, intense illness, and awakenings which have manifested within these drawings, and the sharing of them.
When a rat entered into this home on a cool spring evening, I was triggered, remembering an unseen moment concerning the death of my late father. Because I did not have a vessel for capturing the rat, I hid in my room and began to cope the only way I knew how- I sat and drew 45 illustrations connected to this home.
I awoke the following morning to find my indoor plants and seedlings destroyed, and Robert Pierce’s Alchemical Tarot spread all throughout the house. For the next week, this became my morning routine...picking up the spread out Tarot deck. When I opened the cupboard this packrat had been nesting in, I found a single tarot card propped up in a pot alongside a piece of broccoli, and an avocado pit...the Knight of Vessels.
After over two weeks of cohabitation with the rat, my boundaries became clearer after being crossed again and again. I hesitated, tip-toeing around confrontation. One evening I burst through my bubble of fear with Rat, holding a 5 gallon bucket. “Either you choose to get into this bucket right now, or I will begin to use kill traps because you have crossed a boundary.” Rat heard me, I know. At that moment, I did not succeed in capturing Rat in Bucket, however that evening the rat had chewed a hole through the window screen and jumped out. We became friendly neighbors after Rat chose the old swamp cooler outside as the new home.
The Rat is the trigger, and the drawings are the processing of the trigger. I learned to use the direct environment as a grounding practice during a few major moments in my life. First, during a 3 month solitude project in tierra del fuego, and another was during my 9 months spent at Dhamma Dena Meditation Center. The body of artwork I create is rooted in land-based practices where I work with the soil, minerals, plants and sounds from my direct environment. At the time of creating this deck, I was working with a somatic experience practitioner who was helping me to viscerally access the traumas hidden beneath my triggers. The Rat is a symbol cross culturally and to me this being is an important messenger within my subjective story. This being has allowed me to see into the subconscious in order to reveal what has been suppressed. Expansion, healing and realization result from creating a relationship with the trigger rather than suppressing it.
- This deck was created in 2020, which happens to be the Chinese year of the rat! The original drawings have been used as a social art project researching semiotics throughout the United States. Since 2020 I have been creating intimate space for reflection with family, friends, and complete strangers of all ages, ethnicities, and genders which have informed the meaning made out of each of these drawings. These cards have walked with me openly through the pandemic, the black lives matter movement, and though land scorched with fire. They have served as a tool to reach common ground, dig deep into existential questions, resolve interpersonal conflicts, discuss death, climate grief, loss, and home. Beginning in the very home where these drawings were created, collaborative readings have been conducted within gallery spaces, inside of a mobile art project, within experimental communities including ArcoSanti, inside apothecaries, dining rooms, on mountains, in hot springs, and so on. Tears of joy, surprise, and deep grief wept into the hands of those who held these original drawings. Each card is still open to interpretation depending on the individual's relationship with these symbols, and the reflection they see given the circumstances present. Your experience matters, you matter, I hear you.
The first limited edition of 18 decks were hand printed in Northern New Mexico on unceded territory of Ute and Pueblo people. Each card was woodblock carved, ink was crafted from wildfire charcoal, and 5 of those decks were printed on handmade paper from my own post consumer waste. Through this project, the magick of paper making was shared with communities in Arizona, New Mexico, and California. I have also hand-poke tattled these original drawings on multiple bodies to fund my artistic hermitage
