Nicoletta Ceccoli (Republic of San Marino) is an award-winning artist who has illustrated numerous books for US, UK, Italian, Swiss, and Taiwanese publishers. Some of her clients include Random House, Simon and Shuster, Houghton Mifflin, Macy's, Diesel, Henry Holt, United Airlines, and Vogue. In 2008, she worked as the character designer for a 3D French animation project called La Mécanique du coeur.
Her work has been shown in prestigious collections throughout the
world, including the AFA Gallery in New York City, USA, the
Strychnin Gallery in Berlin, Germany, and the Dorothy Circus
Gallery in Roma, Italy.
Her awards include Italy's Anderson Prize for Best Illustrator of
2001, a silver medal from the Society of Illustrators of New York
in 2006, and multiple year wins for Bologna's Childrens Book Fair
Award and the Award of Excellence from Communication Arts.
Lo Scarabeo's Tarot decks have been acclaimed all over the world for originality and quality. With the best Italian and international artists, each Lo Scarabeo deck is an exceptional artistic value.
Commited to developing innovative new decks while preserving the rich tradition of Tarot, Lo Scarabeo continues to be a favorite among collectors and readers.
Llewellyn is the exclusive distributor of Lo Scarabeo products in North America.
Summary:
Tarot brings us to thresholds, liminal places where we can explore
the strangeness of ourselves, our lives, and the world. The Ceccoli
Tarot is the perfect deck for wading into these surreal and strange
waters. Full Review:
Nicoletta Ceccoli is a popular surreal artist and illustrator of
children's books. Her artistic world is ethereal, innocent,
malevolent, humorous, sensual, dangerous, and complex. Fishes fly,
food talks, and toys come alive. The cards are definitely evocative
and stimulating, although some may find them confusing or
disturbing. The deck is created by using either whole works or
parts of work from Ceccoli's existing portfolio. Because of this,
the images are not Rider-Waite-Smith recognizable nor is there any
other apparent system used. The author of the booklet does a
valiant job of pulling RWS meanings from the cards and, in reading
them, you'd expect the images to have more in common with RWS than
they do. My test for whether a deck is a RWS-style deck is to look
at the images with the names covered. If I cannot determine what
card it is based on the image alone, then it is not (to me) a
RWS-style deck. I could not. Here are descriptions of two of the
cards I looked at. See if you can determine what they are (answers
below): A little girl and a gingerbread man are sitting in a bowl
of froth. A winged blue pitcher floating above the pair pours milk
into the bowl. Nearby a spoon lays on the table and a pink and
white cupcake with a cherry on top walks away on what looks like
fawn's legs. A raven-haired angel sits at the top of a bare tree
looking mournful. A spiral of reddish pink roses spiral around the
tree trunk and onto the ground and down a path, which leads to a
castle in the background. In the middle ground, a fox sniffs at
roses on the ground. Some of these may make sense (in terms of
traditional meanings) as soon as you see them, such as the toy
monkey sitting on a throne made of legos and dice with four
children kneeling before him. He wears a pope's outfit made of
white paper and holds a candy cane scepter. He is, of course, the
Hierophant. Some of the cards may make sense after you read the
name of the card. Some you may have to struggle with. The booklet
includes one spread with a sample reading. If the art resonates
with you and you want something only loosely related to RWS, if you
want to play and explore, if you are not afraid of contradiction,
weirdness, imaginative twists, and the unexpected, then you will
love this deck. It reminds me, in some ways, of the Tarot of the
Sweet Twilight, the Fey Tarot, and the Ludy Lescot Tarot. Note: the
first card described is the Ace of Cups; the second is the 3 of
Wands. Deck Attributes
Name of deck: Ceccoli Tarot
Reviewer's Byline: Barbara Moore
Publisher: Lo Scarabeo
ISBN: 9780738744438
Creator(s) name(s): Nicoletta Ceccoli
Artist(s) name(s): Nicoletta Ceccoli
Name of accompanying book/booklet: Ceccoli Tarot
Number of pages of book/booklet: 63; 19 in English
Author(s) of book/booklet: Lunaea Weatherstone
Available in a boxed kit?: No
Reading Uses: General, dream work
Artistic Style: Surreal
Does it follow Rider-Waite-Smith Standard?: Yes
Does it have extra cards? Yes
|
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
