Diary of a Fool’s Project

In the last episode of the Fool’s Tale the Fool had settled in very cosily at the Court of the Great King – but then he had to set out again to find more cards …Here’s the next part of his journey to becoming a wizard and of course he’ll meet the Hierophant next! As things go with the Fives in Tarot, he’ll have to cross a threshold, pass a test. Not that easy when you are just a fool …Here on the podcast you can just sit back and listen to this chapter of the tarot tale. If you want to see the art timelapse of the creation of the Hierophant of the Creative Tarot, head over to Youtube and check out the video.If you want to know how the tale continues, you can subscribe to this show, it’s free!Here on Substack you find the Diary as a podcast. Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube (you’ll also find a timelapse of the artwork in the Fool’s Tale videos on Youtube)Instagram Medium and my Website.I’d love to connect with you and hear more of YOUR story!Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

Have you ever considered that tarot cards ARE actually playing cards? And that their »meanings« are not limited to what Rider, Waite and Crowley saw in them, based on the beliefs of the Order of the Golden Dawn?The meanings of tarot cards originated from the meanings that people assigned to their actual playing cards at the time. So to become better tarot readers, we could always take a look at the history of playing cards!In this episode I invite you to join me while I browse through one of my absolute favourite books: »Zahl Farbe Trumpf: Die Geschichte der Spielkarten« by Jude Talbot. Please check the details of the book and links mentioned in the podcast below.Here in the podcast you obviously won’t see the visuals I’m showing in the video, so just sit back, listen and relax. »My theory is that cards, whether Tarock or others, have always been used for fortune-telling. Humans have always practiced divination. With everything. The Romans employed augurs who didn’t have much more to do than observe the flight of birds and rummage around in the entrails of sacrificial animals to find omens of some sort. And the Romans were almost a pretty rational bunch. Well. And now: cards! The wicked world of gambling. Bans. Taxes. Restrictions. Probably even burnings at the stake. The dimension of chance. Tell me that doesn’t invite mystical fortune-telling!«📖 This is the book we are talking about:🇩🇪 German edition: Zahl Farbe Trumpf: Die Geschichte der Spielkarten. Herausgeber: Jude Talbot; erschienen im Gerstenberg-Verlag, 2019.🇫🇷 French edition: Fabuleuses cartes à jouer: Le monde en miniature. Publiée sous la direction de Jude Talbot; Editeur: BnF Éditions, Gallimard, 2018.👉 And here are the links mentuoned in the podcast:Discover playing cards in the online collection of the Bibliothèque nationale de France:https://gallica.bnf.fr/selections/fr/html/cartes-jouer-acces-par-type-de-jeuThe geography card game:https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105369727/f83.planchecontact The heraldry card game:https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/btv1b105254467.r=Jeucart?rk=1180263;2Discover playing card patterns on the website of The International Playing Card Society:https://www.i-p-c-s.org/wp/pattern-sheets/Just to be clear: No sponsors, no affiliate links, no paid promo here – just my personal excitement for an incredible book and fascinating topic that I want to share with you. 🧡If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

In this episode I’ll visit My Happy Place: The DIY store. To come up with 78 card ideas, I need to see the big picture, so I need a huuuge board for my office wall. And after that I have no more presentable excuses to procrastinate and I’ll start scribbling the tarot cards.Join me while I’m thinking about composition, layout and card meanings!Plus: There are three or four books I’d like to recommend. :)If you want to see pictures of the scribbles, head over to my Youtube channel and look for the video.»So, how do you depict a conqueror who doesn’t strive for world domination? What is he actually conquering? On the card, he now stands, as tiny as the Master, with rope and gear in front of a massive mountain. For fire, maybe even in front of a volcano. Climbing up there requires not just will and courage, but also training, planning, knowledge, a crew, honest self-assessment, and the goodwill of Mother Nature. He will neither conquer nor defeat the mountain. He is a dwarf who must become one with the massive mountain to reach his goal. And becoming one requires, among many other things, respect and reverence.«If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

Well. I’m still procrastinating on actually picking up a pencil. Thinking about tarot card layout, browsing Pinterest for style inspiration. Noticing in the process that drawing or painting 78 tarot cards is the most stupid idea aI’ve ever had.Anyway. I’ve just decided to actually give you the full insight and make the original Thesis Inspo Board on Pinterest public. Everything I’ve pinned forthe creative tarot …If you can’t see the button, just look forstash78creative on Pinterest or visit my website stash78.com»I’m not a huge drawing pro, and second, I have a strict time limit. That restricts the level of detail quite a bit. I don’t want to draw Disney princesses, nor do I want stick figures. But no hyper-realistic portraits either; I lack the time and skills for those. And the figures somehow have to fit in with the rest of it. And this is the point where I’m seriously asking myself what the hell I’ve actually gotten myself into.«If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

Welcome back to the Diary! In this episode I’ll do some accidental research to procrastinate on actually scribbling the first drafts for the tarot cards … Grab yourself a hot drink, get cosy and let me tell you a bit about the history and design of playing cards, my understanding of what the »soul« actually is, and join me while I dive into Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s »Creativity« to uncover the secrets of the creative personality!Csíkszentmihályi lists the ten dialectical traits and, in a way, already demystifies creativity right here. He goes into divergent and convergent thinking and makes it very clear that divergent thinking, the multitude of ideas (which, in my opinion, is what many people understand as creativity and art) is relatively useless without convergent thinking, the rational side that seeks the single solution. He goes on: Playfulness is needed, of course, but what follows requires perseverance and hard work.If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

So what is talent, actually? Where does inspiration come from? And resistance? Does intelligence play a role in our creativity? I’m not the expert to give you the answers, but I invite you to join me in this episode as I read Steven Pressfield’s amazing book »The War of Art« and reflect upon these concepts.And I’m not an expert on podcasting either, so I’m not sure if you can see the Image of the Muse inserted here … If not, check out my website or instagram to find it.I’ve found that we like to explain the skills and abilities of others through talent or giftedness. That’s mean, because it probably devalues the other person’s hard work (mastery always involves a lot of work!), and at the same time, I might be closing a door for myself: »I don’t have any talent anyway, so I don’t even need to try«. While simultaneously excusing my less-than-stellar results or my lack of perseverance.If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

Ever wondered why creative ideas are so often criticised – and rarely encouraged?Well, here’s one of my early attemps at an explanation. It only happened by accident while I was writing about a real life creative project that got in the way of my thesis …I’m curious to find out what you think of the whole criticism thing and the evolution of the creative demons.We’ll get back to Freud and the demons of creativity in the next and a later episode, when we discuss Steven Pressfield’s The War of Art and Mihály Csíkszentmihályi’s Creativity.Feel free to subscribe if you don’t want to miss them.The Fool against the rest of the world. An inner contest, because no decision has been made, and a wholehearted decision is no longer possible. The creative is no longer deciding for or against their idea, for or against their concept (which doesn’t even exist yet)—with the appearance of the rational critic and their possibly logical arguments about time, resources, and relevance, the creative is deciding for or against reason and the world of adults. One’s own idea, one’s own vision is demoted to an illusion, a daydream, a castle in the air.If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

in this episode we’ll revisit the definition of creativity and find out what other creatives think about it! Some actually identified themselves as creative forthe first time, others shared insights into their struggles with creativity, the flood of ideas. The demons of the creative mind?I’d love to learn more about your own thoughts and experiences!!Here are the definition and the three questions:»Creatives are people who, fueled by an inner drive and their own ideas, create something new (tangible or intangible) according to their personal standards and become fully absorbed in the process.« 1. Do you tend to agree or not?2. Have you considered yourself a creative person until now?3. Based on this definition, would you classify yourself as a creative person?It’s your turn! What’s your answer and how do you perceive your own creatuvity??If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

I’m sure we all use the term »Creativity« – but what do we actually mean by it? Artistic hobbies?Nobel Prize winning achievements?Expression of the soul?Sock knitting???In this episode I’m trying to define creativity – in a way that actually works to buid a thesis around it. I’ll present the first draft of a definition – and I’m curious to find out if you agree or not.What does »Creativity« mean for YOU?»Knitting a sock according to instructions and a pattern only requires reading and technique. It’s the same as painting by numbers, cooking by a recipe, or assembling a Billy bookshelf: once you’ve understood the basic rules and acquired a certain level of skill through repetition, you can reproduce the result at will without wasting a single bit of attention on it. That can be very relaxing (mindless knitting), and the result can be delightful, but it isn’t creative—in my opinion.«If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com

A boring episode, but terribly important, because right here I actually got the idea to use the French suits forthe creative tarot. Perfectly logical if you look at tarot from a designer’s perspective: proper playing cards have a strict graphical system, just modern esoteric tarot (meaning everything that’s based on the RWS) kind of lost it along the way, placing symbolism and imagery center stage.Well, since I’m a lover of everything logical, it makes total sense to look at playing cards rather than tarot cards …Let me know what you think and if you like, name your favourite tarot deck!»I’m of the opinion that perfection doesn’t mean adding more and more, but taking away everything that isn’t strictly necessary. Reduction. Essentialism. In this spirit, I might come up with a symbol for the Cups/Mirrors or some kind of graphic system so that only the image and somehow the number and element appear on the card. Perhaps distributed in the top-left and bottom-right corners, like in a deck of playing cards. I like that. Always have. It calms me. And it allows you to fan the cards out in your hand and see their values. It makes them playable, come to think of it. Maybe I’ll even use the symbols from the French or German suits as a foundation?«If you want to know how the project continues, you can subscribe to this podcast, it’s free!Look for stash78creative to find more of my content on Youtube Instagram Medium and my Website.Thank you for listening! If you enjoyed it, feel free to share it. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit stash78creative.substack.com