The Hanged Man: Just a Stop Along the Way

Sometimes a painting takes an unexpected turn. Sometimes you look at what you've been creating and realize that the vision you started with isn't quite the vision you want to bring into the world anymore.

That's what happened with The Hanged Man.

I originally planned a much simpler background, with a buttery yellow sky and purple mountains. But as I continued working, I decided that wasn't the world I wanted this figure to inhabit. So I repainted nearly the entire landscape.

Now, purple and red clouds swirl across the sky above greenish mountains. A trail winds through the grass in the foreground, framed by the two columns from which the bat hangs. The trail disappears into the mountains and clouds, leading somewhere the viewer cannot see.

I wanted the landscape to feel otherworldly. Not quite a place you could find on a map, but somewhere that might exist between dreams, visions, and the edges of reality.

And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that perhaps this isn't a place where The Hanged Man belongs. Maybe it's simply a stop along his journey.

A Pause Is Not an Ending

The Hanged Man has always carried a fascinating contradiction. He is suspended, seemingly unable to move forward, yet his stillness offers a different perspective. What looks like stagnation from one angle might be transformation from another.

I don't imagine my Hanged Man as someone who has reached the end of his journey. I imagine him passing through.

Perhaps this strange landscape is a place he needs to visit. Perhaps there is something here he must see, experience, or understand before continuing onward. The trail is still there, stretching into the unknown. Its destination remains hidden by the mountains and clouds.

He doesn't need to know what's waiting beyond them just yet.

Neither does the viewer.

I like that uncertainty. The painting doesn't need to explain everything or offer a clear answer. It only needs to capture this particular moment: a figure suspended between where he has been and where he might go next.

Sometimes, the pause itself is part of the journey.

Following the Trail Into the Unknown

The new landscape has become more than a backdrop. The strange colors, the columns, the grass, and the disappearing trail all contribute to the feeling that this place exists outside the ordinary world.

The path gives the eye somewhere to travel, but it offers no promise of an easy destination. It simply continues until the landscape swallows it.

I think there's something fitting about that uncertainty, especially for a tarot card. We often want the cards to tell us what comes next, to make the unknown a little less frightening. But sometimes the most honest answer is that we can only see the next stretch of the path.

We cannot see the entire journey from where we stand.

And perhaps we don't need to.

As an artist, I sometimes begin a painting with a particular idea, only to discover that the work wants to become something else. Changing direction doesn't mean the original vision was a mistake. It means I've continued looking, questioning, and discovering along the way.

The Hanged Man's new landscape feels like an extension of that process. I let go of the simpler background I had planned and made room for something stranger, more mysterious, and closer to what I wanted to express.

The painting changed because my vision changed.

One Moment in a Much Larger Story

Original column

New column.

As I continue building my Phantasmagoria Tarot, I find myself thinking about how each card might exist within a larger, interconnected universe. Each figure occupies a particular place, experiencing a particular moment, but none of them necessarily represents the whole story.

The Hanged Man may be suspended here for now. The trail continues without him needing to follow it immediately. The mountains and clouds conceal what comes next, and the landscape remains open to possibility.

He is not necessarily lost. He is not necessarily trapped. He is simply here, for this moment in time.

And eventually, the journey will continue.

I find comfort in that idea. We don't always know why we've arrived at a particular point in our lives. We don't always understand what we're supposed to learn from it, or how the place we're standing in connects to the destination we once imagined.

Sometimes we have to stop. Sometimes our perspective changes. Sometimes the road ahead disappears into the clouds.

That doesn't mean the journey is over.

A View of Ononodoga Lake on my walk after I was done painting for the day.

For now, The Hanged Man remains suspended in his strange, otherworldly landscape, framed by the columns and surrounded by a world that refuses to explain itself. His trail leads onward, even if none of us can see where it goes.

Perhaps that's enough.

For this moment, he is exactly where he needs to be.

And the journey is still his to continue.