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Strength, individual greeting card, second print, smaller size

Strength, individual greeting card, second print, smaller size

Description

This is a new version of my old card, "Strength" from the Tarot. However, it is improved in my opinion. It is smaller than before, the text on the back is larger, and the colors printed better. I also switched over to the natural white recycled cardstock I use for all my new cards. But the most fun addition is the envelope part--no longer a catalogue style envelope (although I do love those), this new one features a circular sticker featuring Mary and Christ from the larger image on front. The inside has been left blank for your personal message and mark. The envelope is black with a triangular seal. Together this card inside its envelope measures at about seven and three quarters inches by five and a half.

This particular card works nicely as a Yule card, but works well for plenty of other ocassions too. As do all of my greeting cards, this too has an elaborate write-up on the back not only explaining the process in which the original collage was created, but the meaning behind it. Done in a Papyrus font, this is how that reads:

“Strength”— already a feminine card, the images traditionally depicted conflicted with the artist’s own sense of femininity and strength. Usually the woman in the card is shown closing a lion’s mouth. Not only has the artist broken with the tradition of the card being solar, instead of taming the beast, the woman is born of it. The artist altered the card until it became a lunar depiction of the age-old goddess and her son-lover consort. What more is strength than a woman who gives birth to her son so that he can die to be her lover? Paying homage to “Little Red Riding Hood” the artist respects the standing tradition that strong women are associated with wolves—they run with them. Just as the grandmother and little girl are reborn from the belly of the wolf, they themselves are born of each other too, crone, mother (the primal wolf herself) and maiden spiraling through generations. The underworld is thematic of Schantz’s work, and a favorite of these myths is that of Inanna. Usually the underworld is a place inhabited by male figures such as Odin or Hades. But the underworld where Inanna ventures is ruled by her dark sister, Ereshkigal. One can presume that the male occupation of the underworld is a metaphor of earth as womb, that the males are merely in gestation, but sometimes it comes off as rape. True, when the goddess descends into it, she finds herself and her womanhood, yet she is usually kidnapped to do so in the process, such as Persephone. Inanna, instead, by her own free will ventures there, stripping herself of all material goods to hang where Christ and Odin hang. Birth is one side of infinity and this is the other. According to The Tarot Revealed, Eden Gray explains that the meaning of the card is “for a consciousness that is aware of Eternity [which deconstructs all] obstacles [and there can be no] resistance.” As Mary holds the corpse of her son, her expression says just that. She is the very vehicle of forever from which strength is born.

This piece is dedicated to the ferocious women of Vox Feminista, Kiki Smith, Little Red Riding Hood and to the sweet, tough uterus of the artist herself and the one from which she came. The piece itself is made on canvas w/ magazine clippings, decorative paper, pen & ink, acrylics and lots of glue.

Sarah Elizabeth Taz Schantz is working on completing the Tarot deck entirely in collage. Original pieces are for sale, as are magnets, mouse pads and high quality prints. You can reach her at anangka3 [!at] aol.com or for more printed magick visit her webshop, AnangkaArts.Etsy.com. $4.00 . Anangka Arts, Copyright 2007.

Your greeting card will be mailed to you in a cello sleeve inside a more protective envelope marked obsessively in red with the directions, "Do Not Bend!!!" all over. I am but a one woman shop so please allow for up to one week (after receipt of payment) for me to process and ship your order (although it rarely takes that long). Thank you so much for looking and for buying handmade!!! We simply can't afford not to in this day and age!!!

Added on Oct 20, 2009