the lovers

One of my hobbies is collecting tarot decks. Not out of any sense of their having any sort of divinatory power (quite the opposite), but as fascinating examples of the myriad approaches to creating art within an existing structural framework. Unfortunately, most of the tarot web resources have traditionally been dedicated to the more woo-woo aspects, but a couple of years ago Adam McLean, a well-know collector in Scotland, started a forum focusing specifically on collecting tarot as art. I immediately joined, and some months later was banned from the forum, the only time in over 20 years online I have ever been banned - but that's another story. (I was eventually invited back.)

Anyway, the point of all this is that the forum members organize a yearly (so far) collaborative tarot deck. I missed the first one because of my exile, but rather blithely signed up for a card for this year's deck. Of course, when I signed up in February the July due date seemed so far away. Now, not so much. So this weekend has been pretty much entirely dedicated to this:

(As always, click on the image for a larger version.)