The Star Spinner Tarot
Posted: 17 Aug 2020, 17:31
I had my beady eye on Trungles' deck for quite some time now. I have always loved the Uranus card from the Cosmos Tarot and Oracle deck, one of my most coveted and most beloved decks ever, and after I knew that its creator, Trung Le Nguyen, painted a whole deck, it was firmly on my wishlist.
In my tarot work, I do less and less traditional readings, and more and more other kinds of important work - I keep a tarot calendar to rotate my deck collection and connect to the rhythm of the universe - I do shadow work to drag my ugly old self out from the shadows and try to like her somehow (difficult) - and I do inner child work, coaxing my inner child from beneath the old shadows to make her play and trust herself again. For all these kinds of work, tarot is ideal. And that's why I like non-threatening decks.
The Star Spinner Tarot is without a doubt one of these decks that look so lovely they invite you to play, like a star spinner that you rotate in your hand, just happy to see it spin. And the stars spin their travels, and so do we on our lovely Earth, the Universe is spinning its endless, complicated yarn.
The box is beautiful from the inside, too.
The beautiful decorated circles on the Uranus card are also found on the Star Spinner Tarot, Trungles seems to love this motif, it's lovely to see the stars spin around like wheels in the background. It's probably his trademark and if I was courageous enough to get a tattoo, I'd love to have a similar motif. So perfect, so open to interpretation, so inviting. Spinning wheels, just beautiful.
Each card also has four ornamental corners. There are five-pointed white stars in the corners, and circle segments made of either two or three white lines. With the simply white border, that looks as though the cards had lace corners, it makes them look light and nearly fragile.
Once we put the cards next to each others, these ornamental corners connect the cards with intricate patterns. They seem to spin around, too.
There are two completely white circle segments on top and on the bottom of the card. That's where the number and name of the majors, and the Latin number and suit name of the minors have their place. The font is all lowercase, a thin, slightly elongated and very elegant letter that adds to the overall featherlight feeling.
The cardbacks are beautiful. There is satiny feeling to them - the lavender-silvery shimmer of the central motif looks magical. There are spinning stars, too, and the cards are reversable (I never understood what difference that made anyway, I can draw very well from non-reversable decks, too, so what if I see it's a reversed card before I turn it around?).
The art is digital (I guess) but feels like colored pen and ink drawings. The ink-like contours vary in colour for perfect colour harmony and expression. The lines are drawn with a secure and light hand, the colours are sometimes bold, sometimes gentle, always inviting the eye to travel. There are no two cards that resemble. Each has a strong atmosphere.
There's a lot going on in each card but they don't feel crowded. There's a coloured background, sometimes patterned (chevron Harlequin patterns for the Fool), there are attributes and symbols (roses and chains for the Devil), for the minors, the suit symbols, there is the above-mentioned circle of stars, and the main figure/figures. Add to this the intercutting circle segments and circular lines, and you really have your eyes spinning. But the artist keeps all this together through exquisite composition and colour.
Most cards have a harmonious basic chord of colour, mostly based on suit. The Wands tend to be from the yellow-orange palette, the Chalices pink and blue, the Swords dark blue with yellow accents, and the Coins are mostly green.
For the Majors, the artist used a colourful palette with a strong accent on purple, the sublime and spirtual colour.
In my tarot work, I do less and less traditional readings, and more and more other kinds of important work - I keep a tarot calendar to rotate my deck collection and connect to the rhythm of the universe - I do shadow work to drag my ugly old self out from the shadows and try to like her somehow (difficult) - and I do inner child work, coaxing my inner child from beneath the old shadows to make her play and trust herself again. For all these kinds of work, tarot is ideal. And that's why I like non-threatening decks.
The Star Spinner Tarot is without a doubt one of these decks that look so lovely they invite you to play, like a star spinner that you rotate in your hand, just happy to see it spin. And the stars spin their travels, and so do we on our lovely Earth, the Universe is spinning its endless, complicated yarn.
The box is beautiful from the inside, too.
The beautiful decorated circles on the Uranus card are also found on the Star Spinner Tarot, Trungles seems to love this motif, it's lovely to see the stars spin around like wheels in the background. It's probably his trademark and if I was courageous enough to get a tattoo, I'd love to have a similar motif. So perfect, so open to interpretation, so inviting. Spinning wheels, just beautiful.
Each card also has four ornamental corners. There are five-pointed white stars in the corners, and circle segments made of either two or three white lines. With the simply white border, that looks as though the cards had lace corners, it makes them look light and nearly fragile.
Once we put the cards next to each others, these ornamental corners connect the cards with intricate patterns. They seem to spin around, too.
There are two completely white circle segments on top and on the bottom of the card. That's where the number and name of the majors, and the Latin number and suit name of the minors have their place. The font is all lowercase, a thin, slightly elongated and very elegant letter that adds to the overall featherlight feeling.
The cardbacks are beautiful. There is satiny feeling to them - the lavender-silvery shimmer of the central motif looks magical. There are spinning stars, too, and the cards are reversable (I never understood what difference that made anyway, I can draw very well from non-reversable decks, too, so what if I see it's a reversed card before I turn it around?).
The art is digital (I guess) but feels like colored pen and ink drawings. The ink-like contours vary in colour for perfect colour harmony and expression. The lines are drawn with a secure and light hand, the colours are sometimes bold, sometimes gentle, always inviting the eye to travel. There are no two cards that resemble. Each has a strong atmosphere.
There's a lot going on in each card but they don't feel crowded. There's a coloured background, sometimes patterned (chevron Harlequin patterns for the Fool), there are attributes and symbols (roses and chains for the Devil), for the minors, the suit symbols, there is the above-mentioned circle of stars, and the main figure/figures. Add to this the intercutting circle segments and circular lines, and you really have your eyes spinning. But the artist keeps all this together through exquisite composition and colour.
Most cards have a harmonious basic chord of colour, mostly based on suit. The Wands tend to be from the yellow-orange palette, the Chalices pink and blue, the Swords dark blue with yellow accents, and the Coins are mostly green.
For the Majors, the artist used a colourful palette with a strong accent on purple, the sublime and spirtual colour.
I'm not picky about cardstock but even if I was, I guess I'd be satisfied. The cards are laminated smoothly and don't feel papery. There is no structure to the cards, they feel completely smooth and neither too thin nor thick. They're on the flexible side, they don't have a glossy finish, they don't stick to each other and shuffle extremely well. There is no gilding or other treatment to the deck, the borders are white and as I said above, the corner patterns and white borders make it easy to combine a whole layout of cards to a lovely colourful unfied composition. Edge treatments would only interfere with this beautiful effect.