A Buttery Yellow, a Hanged Man, and the Storm Ahead

Yesterday, I was determined to make at least a little progress on The Hanged Man. I had been putting it off, partly because moving a wet oil painting is a pain in the ass, and partly because I have no idea where I will be moving or what my circumstances will look like once I get there. Starting something new felt a little like creating another problem for my future self.

But eventually, I pushed through. I mixed the yellow for the background and got to work.

I didn't match the original color perfectly, but it was close enough to cover the old paint showing through. Yellow can be frustratingly translucent, so getting the coverage right takes patience. I wanted to do more, but the sunlight pouring through the windows had other plans. We never put up window treatments in the art room, so the afternoon sun can be brutal. I usually wear sunglasses and a hat if I need to work in there during those hours, but trying to color-match paint while wearing sunglasses is less than ideal.

Then there were the bugs. Ladybugs, a beetle, a stink bug, and a few flies had all decided the art room was the place to be. Between those unwanted visitors, the water-damaged ceiling, and the very real possibility of mold, it wasn't exactly an inspiring environment. I'd already started moving my art supplies out of that room because of the damage, only to have them moved right back in after I'd made space to work at the dining room table.

So, for now, The Hanged Man has a buttery pale yellow background. That's it. Not exactly a monumental accomplishment, but it's something. I'll try mixing some browns for the bat and greens for the moss next. We'll see how far I get today.

Sometimes, making art isn't about waiting for the perfect conditions. Sometimes, it's about finding a small window of opportunity in the middle of everything else falling apart.

Speaking of everything else, I'm still working on finding employment. I've applied to 111 jobs since the beginning of the year, including 21 since leaving my most recent job. I'd like to submit at least three more applications today. It's exhausting putting yourself out there over and over, trying to find something that fits your skills, your needs, and your circumstances. But I keep trying.

I also wish my Patreon brought in a little more income. I'm genuinely grateful for the patrons who support my work, and I don't want that gratitude to get lost in the frustration. But $15 a month doesn't leave much room to build the kind of financial foundation I'd need to pursue some of my bigger project ideas. Especially when I'm preparing for a move and buying groceries on a credit card.

I've been trying to explore other ways to bring my art into the world, too. I recently got a working Cricut, with some help from my partner toward the cost. Even at Goodwill, prices can sometimes be surprisingly steep. Of course, getting the machine was only the beginning. Now I need the right paper, vinyl, designs, and templates, along with plenty of trial and error.

I did manage to find a few rolls of vinyl at Ollie's, although the colors and sizes were limited. My goal is to start making sketchbooks featuring my own artwork as decals or stickers. It's another small idea that could eventually grow into something meaningful, both creatively and financially. For now, I'm figuring it out one experiment at a time.

There is so much I want to make. So many ideas waiting for their turn. Sometimes I wish I could skip the part where I have to figure out how to fund everything, find the space to work, and keep myself afloat long enough to bring those ideas to life.

I'm trying not to share too much about my personal life here, but I suspect some significant changes are coming. I may soon be navigating things on my own, and there is a lot of uncertainty in that. I'm doing my best to take things one day at a time, even when the future feels like a painting I've only just begun, with no idea where I'll be when the final layers dry.

For now, there is a little yellow on The Hanged Man. There are job applications to send, sketchbooks to experiment with, and a whole lot of figuring things out to do.

And then there is Zoey.

kitty 🍞 

He's happy and healthy, and that matters more than I can say. Whatever happens next, we'll face it together.

We will survive the storm together.

And maybe, just maybe, something beautiful will come out of all this uncertainty.

The Hanged Man and the Art of Being Stuck

There is something strangely appropriate about working on The Hanged Man in October.

Old version

October has always seemed like a month when the dead are a little closer to the surface. The leaves change, the days grow shorter, Halloween approaches, and suddenly the things we spend the rest of the year trying not to think about—death, ghosts, bones, decay, endings—are everywhere.

Maybe that's why I've been thinking about this card again.

Or maybe it's because I've been feeling a little stuck.

The Hanged Man is one of those cards that I have struggled with in a very personal way. In the traditional imagery, he hangs suspended upside down, seemingly trapped. But the longer I spend with the card, the less I see imprisonment and the more I see suspension.

He isn't necessarily going nowhere.

He's simply not moving in the direction he expected.

And sometimes that is exactly what being an artist feels like.

The original painting wasn't taking me where I wanted it to go, so rather than abandoning the canvas, I painted over it.

There is something almost unsettling about painting over a painting.

The previous image doesn't completely disappear. Sometimes traces remain underneath—the ghost of an arm, a change in texture, a shape that no longer makes sense but still exists beneath the surface.

In a way, it becomes another kind of palimpsest(reused parchment).

A record of the version of the painting that didn't survive.

And perhaps that is appropriate for The Hanged Man.

Because sometimes being stuck isn't about having nothing to show for your time.

Sometimes it means you are becoming something different underneath the surface....

The past few months haven't exactly made it easy to stay focused on a 78-card tarot deck.

Life has a way of interrupting art.

Recently, I've lost two family members and a friend.

My aunt on my mother's side passed away about a week before what would have been my mom's birthday. I always called my aunt my second mom, so losing her has carried a particular kind of weight.

There is something strange about losing someone so close to another loss. Dates begin to overlap. Memories become tangled together. One absence reminds you of another.

And then there was my uncle.

I hadn't seen him in several years. He had been living in a nursing home, and I kept thinking about making the extra trip to see him.

I never did.

That is one of the difficult things about grief: sometimes the pain isn't only about losing someone.

Sometimes it is about all the things you thought you still had time to do.

The visit you could make later.

The phone call you could make tomorrow.

The assumption that there would be another opportunity.

There isn't always one....

And then there was a friend I gained after moving out here.

He gave us an Edgar Allan Poe stuffed animal with a little raven perched on his shoulder. He also gave me a tiny backpack with a dangling skeleton.

They are small, almost silly objects.

But grief has a strange way of changing the weight of ordinary things.

Suddenly a stuffed Poe isn't just a stuffed Poe.

A tiny skeleton dangling from a backpack isn't just a decoration.

Objects become evidence.

Proof that someone was here.

Proof that there was a relationship, a moment, a kindness.

Something remains...

This is perhaps where The Hanged Man becomes more interesting to me. We often think of being stuck as wasted time.

I certainly do.

There is a voice in my head that looks at unfinished paintings and unfinished projects and immediately translates them into failure.

You should be further along.

You should have finished this already.

You should be working on the next card.

You shouldn't still be struggling with this one.

But The Hanged Man doesn't seem particularly interested in productivity.

He hangs there.

He waits.

He looks at the world from a completely different angle.

And maybe the point isn't to force yourself out of suspension.

Maybe the point is to ask what you can see from here that you couldn't see while standing upright.

---

There is something particularly strange about being an artist while grieving.

The world doesn't stop.

There are still paintings waiting for paint.

There are emails to answer.

Bills to pay.

Laundry.

Work.

The ordinary machinery of life continues moving even when some part of you feels suspended outside of it.

And art doesn't always provide the escape people imagine it does.

Sometimes it makes you look more closely.

At death.

At the body.

At memory.

At the things we lose.

At the things we leave unfinished.

At all the versions of ourselves that exist underneath the current one.

Phantasmagoria was always going to be about these things.

I just didn't always know how personally I would encounter them while making it.

---

new

The Hanged Man is still unfinished.

The Major Arcana is still unfinished.

Phantasmagoria is still unfinished.

And, honestly, so am I.

Maybe that's why I keep coming back to this card.

The Hanged Man isn't dead.

He isn't defeated.

He hasn't disappeared.

He's simply suspended between what was and what comes next.

And perhaps that is not the same thing as being stuck.

Perhaps sometimes we are simply in the middle of becoming something we cannot see yet.

So I am trying to give myself permission to stay there for a little while.

To repaint the canvas.

To let the old image disappear beneath the new one.

To remember the people who are no longer here.

To feel the things I haven't finished feeling.

And then, eventually, to turn the painting right side up and see what has changed.

For this version of The Hanged Man, I chose a bat. There is something fitting about a creature that spends so much of its existence suspended upside down in darkness. We tend to think of being stuck as something negative—a failure to move forward—but the bat doesn't seem to see it that way. It hangs, waits, listens, and navigates a world that looks completely different from our own. Maybe suspension isn't always about being trapped. Maybe sometimes it is about learning how to see differently before you move again.

October feels like a fitting time for that.

The dead are close.

The leaves are letting go.

And somewhere in the studio, The Hanged Man is still waiting for me...

Raining in my Studio

I tried to get a lil work done as a warm up when a stormed rolled through. This is not directly related to the tarot, but I wanted to ease back into it. My hands and wrists are in very rough shape and I've barely been able to hold a book let alone a paint brush.

I did enjoy the storm and a took a few short videos hoping to catch the thunder over the water, but alas that never happened.

After being out in the art room maybe a half hour when I realized that it was raining behind by tabletop easel. There has been traces of paint and debris in the art room on my desk. Never had this happen before and the landlord is well aware of the issues. It is not only here but in part of the bar area in the kitchen.

This is actually the ceiling. As of September 2. There's now a tote on my desk in case it rains hard again. And for the most part, I've left everything off my desk.

Currently trying to relocate everything in my art studio so I can start working again. Will try to get some new stuff posted ASAP!

The High Priestess Card 4 years later...

2 The High Priestess 

My notes of the High Priestess Card:

The Dark goddess stirs from her slumber. Trust your intuition.

Positive Aspects: Intuition, knowledge, wisdom

Negative Aspects: Secrets, manipulation 

Affirmation: I trust and I follow my instincts, I will find that which I seek. 

The high priestess moves between logic and spirit. She is associated with the archetypes of the Wise Woman, Isis and Phersephone. Here we see the priestess portrayed as Persephone, goddess of the underworld. She also rules over spring and vegetations(grains).

 The scroll indicates learning and accumulation of knowledge. Emotional, feminine phases and cycles are shown in the triple goddess symbol in the sky. Wings show transformation and the ability to rise above.

The priestess herself represents the unseen world and the mystery. Through your third eye you can know what’s invisible to your seeing eyes. She represents the beginning stages of psychic awareness. She sits between worlds and is the gateway through which you must pass to learn your lesson. 

This card represents the Esbats.

Standing at the Threshold of the Major Arcana

There is a strange feeling that accompanies the end of a long journey.

Not triumph.

Not relief.

Something quieter.

The sensation of standing at a doorway, one hand on the frame, knowing there is still an entire landscape waiting beyond it.

As I continue working on the Phantasmagoria Tarot, I find myself approaching that threshold. Many of the Major Arcana paintings have taken shape over the past months and years, emerging slowly through layers of research, revision, symbolism, and paint. While several pieces are still works in progress, the vision of the Major Arcana has become clearer than ever before.

The figures that inhabit this deck have become familiar companions. They have followed me through uncertainty, grief, transformation, illness, inspiration, and countless hours in the studio. Each card has asked its own questions.

The Fool asks what it means to begin.

The High Priestess asks what remains hidden.

Death asks what must change.

Judgment asks what happens when we finally hear the call that has been echoing beneath the surface all along.

Together, they form a narrative that feels less like a sequence of events and more like a psychological landscape—a journey through memory, identity, shadow, and rebirth.

In many ways, the Major Arcana has become the backbone of Phantasmagoria itself.

Yet despite the progress, these paintings are not finished.

Some still require revision. Others need details refined, symbolism strengthened, or compositions reconsidered. Like the themes they represent, they continue to evolve. I have learned that tarot imagery often reveals itself gradually, and forcing a card to completion before it is ready rarely produces the result I am seeking.

So they remain in conversation with me.

Works in progress.

Living things.

---

At the same time, I find my attention increasingly drifting toward what comes next: the Minor Arcana.

This is both exciting and intimidating.

The Major Arcana often receives the most attention because it contains the grand archetypes—the dramatic transformations, revelations, and spiritual milestones. The Minor Arcana, however, is where life actually happens.

It lives in ordinary moments.

In work and exhaustion.

In relationships and conflict.

In celebrations and disappointments.

In the quiet repetition of daily existence.

If the Major Arcana tells the story of the soul, the Minor Arcana tells the story of being human.

And there is a daunting beauty in that.

Seventy-eight cards can feel like a mountain when viewed all at once. It is easy to become overwhelmed by the scale of the project and to focus on what remains unfinished rather than what has already been accomplished.

But perhaps that feeling is fitting.

After all, every tarot journey begins with The Fool standing at the edge of an unknown path.

As I look toward the coming months, my goal is simple: continue moving forward.

Not perfectly.

Not quickly.

Just consistently.

To return to the studio.

To keep sketching.

To keep painting.

To trust that each completed piece becomes a stepping stone toward the larger vision.

Phantasmagoria has always been a project concerned with transformation, and perhaps creating a tarot deck is its own lesson in that process. The work changes. The artist changes. The meaning changes.

What matters is continuing to answer the call.

So while the Major Arcana remains unfinished, it also feels alive in a way that completed things rarely do. And as I stand at this threshold, looking toward the Minor Arcana waiting in the distance, I am reminded that every deck—like every journey—is created one card at a time.

The path forward may be long.

But the next card is waiting.

Judgement

The Judgment card is often misunderstood if you read it as punishment or moral reckoning. It’s less about being judged—and more about being called.

In traditional imagery (especially in decks like the Rider–Waite Tarot), an angel sounds a trumpet while figures rise from coffins. It looks apocalyptic, but it isn’t about destruction. It’s about awakening—a moment where something inside you can no longer remain buried.

Core Energy: The Call You Can’t Ignore

Judgment is the feeling of: finally seeing your life clearly recognizing a pattern you’ve been repeating realizing you can’t go back to who you were

It’s not gentle like The Star, and it’s not chaotic like The Tower. It’s sharper than that—clarity with consequence.

Themes Inside the Card

1. Resurrection (But Not Literally)

Something “dead” rises: an old version of yourself, a truth you avoided, a creative voice you buried

This is why the imagery matters—the coffins aren’t graves, they’re containers. You outgrew them.

2. Self-Evaluation Without Illusion

This is one of the few cards that asks:

Can you be honest about who you’ve been?

Not harshly. Not with shame. But with a kind of total clarity.

It’s the moment where excuses fall away—not because you’re punished, but because you’re ready to see.

3. The Past Returns for Integration

Judgment often brings: people reappearing, old memories resurfacin, unresolved situations asking for closure

Not to trap you—but to complete something.

4. Decision That Changes Identity

Unlike smaller decisions, Judgment choices alter your trajectory: leaving a relationship, choosing your art seriously, redefining your sense of self

It’s less “what should I do?” and more:

Who am I now that I know this?

In the Context of the Phantasmagoria

It’s the moment after the waiting.

The test result arrives

The body reveals something

Or even more unsettling: nothing is found, but something still feels different

Judgment isn’t always closure. Sometimes it’s recognition.

You could see this card in your world as:

a figure rising not from a coffin, but from their own body, translucent skin, inner organs illuminated, a sound (not necessarily divine) pulling them upward—maybe a frequency, a hum, a medical machine, a memory

In that sense, the real question of the card is:

Are you listening outward—or inward?

Judgment is not the moment you are condemned, but the moment you can no longer pretend you do not hear yourself.

The Liminal Body

There is a particular kind of waiting that dissolves time.

Not the soft waiting of seasons turning, or paint drying into its final truth—but the suspended, fluorescent waiting of medical tests. The kind where your body becomes both oracle and enigma. Where every sensation feels like a message you cannot quite translate.

In the language of tarot, this is the realm of the unseen card—the one that exists between the spread and the self. It is the inhale before revelation.

I imagine this space as a figure seated in a dim corridor, somewhere between the High Priestess and the Hanged Man. Not passive, but suspended. Not powerless, but held in a tension that asks for surrender. Their body is luminous and translucent, threaded with quiet constellations—organs glowing like distant stars, each one whispering a secret not yet spoken aloud.

Waiting becomes its own ritual.

We are taught to seek answers, to chase clarity like a fixed point. But the body, like the cards, does not always reveal itself on command. Sometimes it asks us to sit in the ambiguity, to trace the outlines of fear without letting it consume the image.

There is a kind of grief here—anticipatory, for futures that may never arrive. And yet, there is also an intimacy. To wait for news about your own body is to be drawn into a deeper listening. To notice the rhythm of your breath. The quiet labor of your heart. The strange, sacred fact of your aliveness.

In Phantasmagoria, I would paint this as a corridor of mirrors, each reflection slightly altered. In one, the figure is whole. In another, fragmented. In another, radiant beyond recognition. The cards are scattered at their feet, but all are face down.

Because sometimes, the truth is not in the knowing.

Sometimes, the magic—the terror, the transformation—lives in the waiting itself.