Gypsy's Soul Cards

My Gypsy's Soul cards are done. Some of them I love, some are just okay, but that's the way it goes. Like my former art teacher used to say...for every 100 works an artist does, there will be ONE that is "good enough". I've found that to be a good approximation of the truth time and time again.

I tried to stick with images of gypsies that most people would be familiar with for the images on these cards - music, dancing, fortune telling - while adding a little bit of lesser known stuff - mainly Romani phrases. I can't vouch for their accuracy since I know no Romani personally, but I liked the idea. I believe these phrases were Anglo-Romani and I found them on a web site after a little digging. I wrote some of the phrases down in my notes but didn't think I would use them so I didn't bookmark the page. If I find it again I'll update this post to give credit to the site. As I mentioned before, "Na bister 500,000" means "don't forget the 500,000" and is in reference to the number of Romani who died in Nazi Germany. Some of the other phrases I used were "Amaro baro them" (our ancestral homeland), "O manusha kheleran tut" (the people make you dance), and "Ashen Devlesa Rovale" (may you remain with God). "Sara la Kali" (Saint Sara/Black Sara) can be thought of as the patron saint of the Romani. Many Romani make a pilgrimage to Saintes Maries de la Mer in France every year to visit the crypt of Saint Sara.

This swap is for up to 9 cards and you will notice that there are 10 here. I made the Saint Sara card for myself to add to my growing collection of Divine Feminine cards. (If any other ATC artists want to trade cards of a Divine Feminine nature - Goddesses, Saints, etc., let me know!)

I've learned so much about the Romani peoples from researching this that it will probably be a recurring theme for me. There are so many ways that I could explore this theme besides collage.