Mindscapes   ( Thumbnail View • Enlarged View )

	Markings #3 Stone Riley Acrylic on canvas, 24 x 20 inches. A region of the mind where motivation becomes speech and action. Perhaps an anecdote will make the point: I spent the year of 1980 studying Tarot intensively. The first thing that I learned was only that the task was hard. None of the bookstores even had a version of the deck whose pictures I could understand, and that did seem essential. And so I thought that I had better make one up. It was an act of desperation really, there in January. Tarot seemed to be a wide door into magic and I very badly wanted magic in my life. The trick was only that the door must be prized open so I might enter, and powers there emerge. I had the Waite/Smith Rider Pack, the Aquarian Pack and one abstract metaphysics book about the subject. I had pencils and artist paper, rulers and compasses, sharp knives, proper glue, and such. I had my studies of Tao and Zen and Hinduism, the I Ching and a Ouija Board. That seemed enough equipment for the job if one applies the rule of going lightly burdened. (After all, to take a running leap at such a high and distant target, one ought to go lightly burdened.) So, telling no one then at first in case it came to naught, I launched right in. I would see if it was possible to make a Tarot deck that I could comprehend. I sketched a card or two then three or four, the ace of hearts and a few of the faces, and found the sketches good enough for me. I showed these few beginning prototypes to some random folks and then some friends and they could read them clearly. I found as well that these pictures, at least these few, could be drawn from carefully selected experiences of my own life. And so each Monday I began to take a few at random from the Rider Pack and put them in my pocket, so to gaze occasionally into their depths and watch for them outside. And so I carried on. That is the state of mind I tried to make this painting show. Here's that Tarot deck (it's the black & white, not the one with color paintings): http://www.stoneriley.com/MagicMirrorTarotDisplay.html Or some poems I wrote while making that deck: http://www.stoneriley.com/TOMW/TheMajorArcanaOfTheSimpleTarot.html Or a whole book of short writings: www.stoneriley.com/TOMW.html Or the home website: www.stoneriley.com
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