Transforming the deck
Artist Denise Weaver Ross revisits playing cards suits while invoking mythology, nature and the dead
Books of poetry and art inspired by a deck of cards with influences of mythology, tarot, nature and the dead are the core of Denise Weaver Ross’ recent works.
A formal book release and open mic showcasing Ross’ books “The House of Cards: The Whole Deck” and “Letters to the Deceased and Other Missives” will take place on Sunday, Sept. 13, at Tortuga Gallery. Art from the book “The House of Cards: The Whole Deck” also will be on display. The event also will take place on Zoom and presented in conjunction with Jules’ Poetry Playhouse that helped publish the books.
The art show “House of Cards Revisited” is a 56-piece series of 26-inch by 40-inch images. The remaining 32 pieces that have not sold will hang at the gallery and be available for purchase from 4-6 p.m. Monday, Sept. 7, through Saturday, Sept. 12.
Ross first showed the artwork at Tortuga in 2015, which later launched a book of ekphrastic poetry by Ross and other local poets that wrote about the pieces. Ross is inviting poets to return and write ekphrastic poetry inspired by the art to be included in a third book to be published in the near future.
The artwork takes a regular deck of cards and transforms it into something intimate, stellar, earthy, and prehistoric.
“The Heart Suit combines the artist’s personal story with Egyptian and tarot motifs,” according to a “House of Cards” series description provided by Ross. “Clubs become the Tree Suit, mixing myth and story from different cultures with the artist’s experience of both the natural and symbolic world of trees. Diamonds are transformed into the Star Suit, with a focus on celestial bodies and constellations. The artist has turned spades into the Bone Suit, combining fossils and human history with Day of the Dead influences—think T-Rex and Richard III skeletons entwined with pre-Columbian plants.”
The Tree Suit features illustrations of mythological and real trees from Ross’ backyard as well as Celtic imagery.
“‘Apogee of An Apricot Tree,’ for example, was based on the apricot trees that I had in my backyard,” she explained. “It was just different things would come up related to the trees and the number of trees, so I did an apricot tree that had just died in my backyard. It was sort of a eulogy for an apricot tree.
“For two trees, I did the Garden of Eden kind of thing and so as the trees went to the different numbers it would remind me of different things either in the natural world or the mythological world.”
The diamond suit transformed into the Star Suit is rich in mythology. Ross layered different star maps together from different cultures. She found commonalities and brought them together based on the star maps. She followed a similar concept with the Bone Suit.
“So with the bones every one has a fossil, a plant, so it’s like life and death and some sort of human bone,” Ross said.
“A funny one is, I got to three bones and what has three bones? The pelvis has three fused bones so I thought ‘Elvis the Pelvis,’ and there’s also three bones in the inner ear like sort of for musicians. So I did ‘Elvis and the Three Bones.’ Some of it is really serious and some of it is playful and fun.”
Ross wrote poems to accompany each of the suits, including a poem called “Heart Transplant” written for a friend who was going through a divorce. Ross’ personal heartache of losing her husband almost 20 years ago inspired her first artwork of the series the “Queen of Heart Transplants.”
“That took until 2018 to finish all the poems for the suits and so then I combined, I had four little books, and so this year with the pandemic and having extra time on my hands I combined those four books into one book. So the idea for the art show was sort of celebrate the release of the one combined book, and then meanwhile during the pandemic I started looking at my other poetry and I produced a second book. So that’s sort of how it happened.”
Ross’ second book “Letters to the Deceased and Other Missives” has a fair amount about the pandemic showing up at the end of that book.
“It’s kind of a poetic memoir and the end of it, which is the most recent part of my life, has quite a few pandemic-related poetry in that,” she said. “I imagine, I don’t know what will happen when the poets come to write more poetry about the work. I wouldn’t be surprised if the pandemic came up in it so we’ll have to see. That will be the book that will be published after this whole event.”