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Witches Codex
Interview conducted by Peter M. White
October, 2007
Mr. Timothy Lantz is the very creative artist who brought the tarot world the very interesting and attractive Archeon Tarot deck in 2005. He took some time to answer questions for us in this exclusive Witches Codex interview
About You, Your interests
According to your bio, you went to school for art education and communications. Were your original aspirations to get into teaching such subjects? How did you settle on those majors?
I don’t think I really knew what my original aspirations were. Initially, I started college in computer science. When it became clear that programming just wasn’t my passion, I was encouraged to take courses I would enjoy and just kind of explore my options. Of course, I ended up taking a bunch of art classes and still didn’t really have a plan. The education thing was kind of something I let myself be talked into. By everyone’s account I was a natural at it, but I just never felt comfortable in that kind of role.
After graduation, I kind of spent a year half-heartedly looking for a teaching position, but then opted to go back to school to study communications/media. That’s where I discovered photoshop, and it kind of changed my life.
When you were growing up were you always drawn to visual media/symbols?
What kind of impact did those topics have on you as a teen and young adult?
Definitely. For me, it probably started with comic books. I had a subscription to Marvel Comics’ Mighty Thor when I was in second and third grade. I’ve no doubt you can trace my lifelong fascination with mythology, symbolism and storytelling to those books. The characters and the worlds in comics just set my imagination on fire. It’s a passion that’s still a large part of my life today.
It’s hard to assess the impact visual media may have had on me as it’s so integral to who I am. I cannot remember a time when I wasn’t thinking in pictures. My whole world view is pretty much comics, illustrations, film and video. It’s my second language.
You say on your site if you were born 100+ yrs ago you'd most likely have been a 19th century symbolist. What do you think is the mass appeal of symbols, their meanings and the Carl Jung theory of analogy? It seems as if more and more people are taking to this school of thought, interest as time marches on.
I believe symbols act as a form of shorthand for ideas and concepts that allow people to express them selves in a way that can easily be understood while still being relatively free to interpretation.
This allows us to feel we grasp the meaning, but we are also able to personalize it in a way that it becomes more relevant to our own experiences.
How did you get into the Tarot in the first place? And how did you come about in 2002 to decide to do your own deck?
Tarot is one of those things that was always a fascination. The initial draw for me was probably the artwork and just the whole mystery of it all. My first deck was a Rider Waite. I bought it when I was still in high school, but beyond some cursory exploration I never really did much with it. Eventually, I lent it to a friend who let his girlfriend use it and it moved away with her to California and I never saw it again. LOL
(The Archeon tarot was started in 2004, not 2002) How the Archeon came about is a story I’ve told a few times. I tend to spend a lot of time on the internet, at work and at home, and consequentially I see a lot of art and read about a lot of artists. Online, it seems there is no shortage of artists working on their own personal interpretations of the tarot. One artist in particular was showing off their latest version of the Major Arcana and well, I really didn’t care for what I saw. Their version of The Moon especially didn’t work for me and I started thinking, “How would I do that? What would MY version of The Moon look like?” So, I started with that one card. I made a decent enough stab at it, and that was going to be it. When I showed it to several of my friends, the feedback was amazing. So much encouragement and positive feedback really spurred me on to try a few more. At most, I had planned to maybe just do the Major Arcana. However, by the time I had seven or so finished, I was hooked. The combination of research, learning the tarot system and then trying to distill it all into a visual medium was a fantastic challenge and really just ignited a passion in me.
About the Tarot & Archeon deck
Waite used a fair amount of Christian symbology in the Rider-Waite-Smith(RWS) deck. More modern tarot deck creators either follow his lead or do not. You obviously, did not. Could you tell us what brought you to this conclusion and direction?
The simple answer is I’m not a Christian. In fact, I really don’t follow any organized system of belief, though I do feel that there are things much deeper that connect all of us in a way that speaks to what it is to be human.
I wanted the Archeon to reflect life and what it means to be alive, not just be a propaganda tool for any particular system of belief. For that reason, I tried to include a more multi-cultural approach. That being said, I could have maybe included even more diversity but I really tried to be careful not to emphasize that aspect too much. I wasn’t making the “It’s a Small World” tarot after all. I just wanted to acknowledge that there is a much bigger world full of people and ideas out there.
Generally speaking, you follow the themes and overall symbols of the RWS deck. Other deck makers have totally started anew and left little, if any, remainders of the RWS and other classic deck archetypes. Do you feel a deck will lose their deeper meanings the farther one gets away from the classic decks? Or do you feel anyone can create a deck from scratch, without consideration for the classic symbology, and it will be as effective as the RWS or Archeon decks?
That was a very conscious decision on my part. I wanted to make the deck as accessible as possible, while still injecting my own influence and beliefs into the project. By sticking with the same structure, I figured it would make it easier for people to transition from what they were familiar with. It was also a way for me to gain a better understanding of the history and established traditions of the tarot so that I could figure out for myself where I thought it could be improved or modified to be a more effective tool.
In that regard, the Archeon really helped me establish a base knowledge and understanding of the tarot from which I look forward to moving beyond. My next deck will not adhere so closely to tradition.
You used real life models in your art, something I find quite uncommon, if not original, when it comes to tarot. Tell us about your thought process and how you moved in that direction.
The use of live models in my art was something I had been moving towards for a while. The Archeon was really the first major step in that direction and I learned so much while working on the images. Since its completion, I’ve continued to build upon that aesthetic and I think I’ve grown a lot artistically.
According to your web site you had/have a dispute about the 6 of Pentacles with the publisher. Could you go into more detail why you thought your product was 'better' then their edited version? Why do you think they decided to change it?
When I submitted the completed deck, they came back with 13 changes they wanted to see in the artwork. Most were minor adjustments and ultimately not worth worrying about. The six of pentacles seemed to be sticking point with them though. My image has a handful of coins, 6 of which are embossed with symbol I chose to represent the suit. US Games felt that the image was unclear and that having more than six coins was a problem.
I can see their reasoning, but I think they underestimate the abilities of the audience in being able to see the subtlety. Tarot is meant to be examined and if you need to work a little to see something, then that’s how it should be. By simplifying it so much, it just seemed like they were saying “people are too dumb, make it easier.” And that didn’t sit well with me.
Speaking of pentacles, I find the picture you use to display them on the cards quite interesting. What is that round, coin or platter like object you use? What meaning does such have to you?
That image is Ptolemy’s model of the universe. It’s an image that has become public domain, but is attributed to Peter Apian (1495-1552) from his work Cosmographia (1574). As I mentioned, I wanted to avoid using pre-existing symbols that carried a lot of baggage. The traditional pentagram with a star and a circle has really taken on so much occult overhead that it just didn’t belong in my vision of the tarot.
Aesthetically, I’m obsessed with this graphic. It’s nearly the most perfect thing I’ve ever seen. The fact that it’s circular and intricate makes it visually suitable as a replacement for pentacles in a way that just feels right.
The Devil card; you eliminated the classic bound male/female figure and
(inverted) pentagram from your final version. Could you explain why you did such and the process you went though designing the devil card?
I’ve always thought that old devil image was lame and again there’s that pentacle that I didn’t want in my deck. I understand the traditional meaning behind that image, but really I just always felt it was kind of immature and perhaps too rooted in the Christian mythos.
In my opinion, the Devil isn’t some external boogey man. He’s that tiny voice inside your brain, saying “go ahead, have that second piece of cake.” So keeping with that idea, I tried to make him look a little more like a satyr to kind of imply that whole indulgence aspect, while still retaining some of the elements that traditionally symbolize the devil.
The Hanged Man; You went pretty far in redesigning and reassigning its meaning from the more classic versions. Was there any specific reason why you did so? What was your inspiration?
Mostly I think I just saw a need for this card to be presented in a fresh way. I wanted a card about choice, and about considering all of the options before you choose. This seemed like a good card to assign that meaning to and it’s more traditional meaning wasn’t something I felt would be strongly missed.
I always found the RWS card Temperance a difficult card to wrap my head around when doing a reading for some reason, you seemed to 'simplify' it more or less. And I find the Archeon version not only more interesting on a symbolic level but it makes more 'sense' when doing a reading to me. Do you have any thoughts on that or why that may be?
Temperance was another card that I just felt I needed to come at from a different angle. I found the existing interpretations to be overly complex and not quite satisfying on a personal level. I eventually found myself going to the dictionary for a definition and that’s when the light came on. In the art, I tried to emphasize nature and that sometimes it’s necessary or possible to show restraint even though it might be against our desire to do so.
Since your cards release, have you found anyone taking any specific card, on an interpretation level, in a direction you didn't expect or see initially?
Yes, and I love it. I think a tool like tarot is meant to be something that speaks to you on an individual level. It’s something that needs to be internalized and made personal for it to be effective.
This is one of the reasons, despite frequent requests, that I’ve declined to write a more in-depth book. I want people to come up with their own interpretations, to find their own stories in the art and really make the deck their own. I tried to give enough information to get you started, but I think it’s something you really need to explore on your own. It’s all about the journey.
Do you have any final thoughts you'd like to share?
When I started working on the Archeon Tarot, I never imagined my little personal deck would be so well received. I’d just like to say thanks to everyone who has helped support the deck and my other work these past few years. All of the attention and kind words I’ve received… it’s just been overwhelming and I feel extremely honored to have had the opportunity to interact with so many great people.
How can fans contact you, learn more about the Archeon deck?
I’m pretty easy to track down. There’s the Archeon Tarot website, http://www.archeontarot.com and my own personal website Stygian Darkness, http://www.stygiandarkness.com and if you look around you’ll find me in a few other places on the web as well.
Thank you Mr. Lantz for taking the time to probe your thoughts on yourself, the Archeon deck and the tarot in general.
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