Collage as an art form is not a new invention. Pablo Picasso and Kurt Switters were among the painters, who in the early 20th century incorporated bits of letters, newspapers, used tickets and similar objects in their oil paintings. The use of collage techniques grew during the 20th century and became also an important medium for advertising and for political propaganda as in the photomontages by Grosz and Heartfield in the 1920's and 1930's.

A simple definition of collage art might be, that collages are created by the use of already existing images or subjects, made by oneself or someone else: photos, clippings from newspapers and magazines and whatever else material is at hand, even three-dimensional objects.

"Everyone can do that", some would say. "They do it in kindergarten!" A stack of old papers, a pair of scissors (not pointed, when we are talking about kindergarten) and some glue is all that is needed. There is, however, more to being a collage artist than just to paste pieces of paper on a background. The art comes in, where the collage artist has an extraordinary feeling for combining otherwise not related single pictorial elements in a way so they express her intentions. Whether the result is harmonious or the opposite, the intention is to create an entirely different experience. This intention is lived up to in the deck reviewed here.

When Arnell Ando in 1995 self-published her "Transformational Tarot" (see my review in TPC vol. 34 #3), it was the beginning of a new trend. Collage technique became popular when it came to creating "one's own tarot deck", an aspiration not so few American tarotists had and still have. Back in the early 1990's, collage tarot decks were made the hard way, using a pair of scissors, glue and a stack of magazines. If a needed element did not have the right dimension, a visit to the copy shop was needed to reduce it to proper size. Most early collage decks existed only in original form, to have them produced in multiple copies was a costly affair. Over the years, however, colour copies became cheaper, ink-jet printers became popular, good quality scanners became easily accessible and design programs like Photoshop made it possible to put aside the scissors and glue. Producing small quantities of decks became within reach.

During four years, 2003-2006, Arnell Ando has, co-working with a friend, Leslie Cochran, produced a tarot calendar in a limited number of about 100 copies, each artist designing six tarot images for each year's calendar. Now four years later, they have each selected 22 cards of their own from the calendars and each manufactured a handcrafted major arcana set. Ando's deck, named "The Lucky Pack Tarot" (what I write here is also to a great extent valid for Cochran's deck, named "Dreamythology Tarot", which I know only from the calendar illustrations), comes in a sturdy cardboard box, decorated on the lid with an illustration and an artistamp, based on the calendar images. Inside we find a signed & numbered title card, a card depicting the "Celtic Cross"-pattern plus, of course, the selected 22 majors, which actually are 23 cards, since two different "Lovers" are included. There is also a scroll which includes the artist's signature and a small booklet printed on parchment type paper, in which the 23 cards are commented on with personal notes and reflections, that reach far beyond what we normally are presented with in "the little white books". Finally, there are four mini artistamp sheets of 6 stamps each, depicting details from the cards. All of it made by hand of course, with the help of a computer, a printer and a laminator...

In my opinion this is a deck that's a lot more interesting to own than the majority of commercially printed tarot decks, because it is so much more personal, and you can, so to speak feel the work put into it.