Going Beyond Tradition: Tarot Basics for Artists and Creatives

Zoom Workshop

Wednesday, January 26, 3:00-4:30 EST

Free

Please join Hilma's Ghost on Wednesday, January 26th from 3:00-4:30 EST for a free workshop with Sarah Potter, a professional and renowned Tarot reader, who will guide us through the basics of the ABSTRACT FUTURES TAROT deck. Learn how to use the cards intuitively, expressively, and creatively to create your own spreads and read Tarot.

Geared towards creatives and artists, this workshop will look at non-traditional ways of using Tarot cards. We will talk through using the deck to navigate challenging questions in your creative practice, as a tool for choosing opportunities, and general ways of deepening your intuition with your creative practice with the use of the cards.

This session is free and open to all. If you have your own Tarot deck, please bring it to this virtual session. If you would like to buy one of our decks, EFA Project Space has a limited supply of ABSTRACT FUTURES TAROT decks in New York that you can purchase in person. Please contact Judy Giera at judy@efanyc.org to reserve your deck and pay and pick up the deck in person. For shipping outside of New York, purchase the decks on the Hilma’s Ghost website here.

Hilma's Ghost's ABSTRACT FUTURES TAROT deck holds itself in conversation with the Rider-Waite-Smith, which is not only the most popular deck in worldly distribution today but was illustrated by a womxn, Pamela Colman Smith. More than a century later, Brooklyn-based artists, Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray apply an abstract lens to the cards’ rich symbolism to access their semiotic potential and surface divinatory meanings. The artists worked together for more than 300 hours to construct the 78 original drawings for their tarot deck, an amalgamation of their unique and distinct visual languages.

The original drawings are on Fabriano Murillo paper with a combination of gouache, ink, and colored pencils, their size directly proportional to the Tarot card dimensions. Both artists hold extensive knowledge regarding western and non-western abstraction, with Tegeder pulling from Bauhausian and Minimalist traditions, and Ray from spiritual and esoteric forms from South Asia, as well as the patterning and craft traditions of Asian textiles. Within these drawings lies a rich sensibility for color, shape, and compositional elements, expressing hybrid traditions of abstraction that is intrinsically experimental and daring. The project in its entirety was presented by Carrie Secrist Gallery at The Armory Show in September 2021 and was included in this as one of the exhibitions to see in a review for The New York Times by Will Heinrich.

Sarah Potter is a Tarot reader and professional witch based in NYC. Her writing about the occult is regularly featured in Cosmopolitan, Astrology.com, Bust Magazine, and other popular outlets. Her first book, The Cosmo Tarot: The Ultimate Deck and Guidebook, debuted in 2021.

Hilma’s Ghost, a feminist artist collective, was co-founded by Brooklyn-based artists Dannielle Tegeder and Sharmistha Ray in 2020. The collective seeks to address existing art historical gaps by cultivating a global network of women, nonbinary, and trans practitioners whose work addresses spirituality. Hilma af Klint’s groundbreaking exhibition at the Guggenheim in 2018 served as a reckoning for art history’s blindspots, especially for women artists considered too ‘mystical’ for the conservative art world.

​Named after af Klint, Hilma’s Ghost believes that western heteropatriarchal societies maintain a false binary between spirituality and science. This bias serves to overlook womxn artists whose explorations of ancient and pre-modern knowledge systems is a source of personal strength and aesthetic innovation. Following a year of lockdowns and social distancing, Hilma’s Ghost acts as a restorative project that uplifts these voices and makes them visible. Since its inception, Hilma’s Ghost has run online workshops that have been attended by over 700 people, from all over the world. The Instagram archive also documents the stories of womxn artists. To learn more about Hilma's Ghost, check out our website or follow us on Instagram. We regularly post about our programs and profile living womxn artists working with aspects of the occult and/or spirituality.

This program is being held in conjunction with Cosmic Geometries, a group exhibition curated by Hilma’s Ghost, at EFA Project Space until February 26, 2022. This program is made possible with the kind support of Carrie Secrist Gallery. To view the curatorial walkthrough and meet some of the artists, link to our first program from January 13, here.

EFA Project Space, launched in September 2008 as a program of The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, is a collaborative, cross-disciplinary arts venue founded on the belief that art is directly connected to the individuals who produce it, the communities that arise because of it, and to everyday life; and that by providing an arena for exploring these connections, we empower artists to forge new partnerships and encourage the expansion of ideas.

The Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts is a 501(c)(3) public charity, dedicated to providing artists across all disciplines with space, tools and a cooperative forum for the development of individual practice. We are a catalyst for cultural growth, stimulating new interactions between artists, creative communities, and the public.

VISITOR INFO

View Cosmic Geometries Wed–Sat 12 PM-6 PM, no appointment necessary, mask and proof of full vaccination required for entry. For more information and accessibility notes please visit: https://projectspace-efanyc.org/