"In my cards, the darkness and the lightness both have their reality..."
By Melanie Harris
Tattoo artist, 3-D artist, musician, and creator of the Traumzeit-TarotⓇ, Stefan Beckhusen is a man of many passions. Highly skilled, this German artist incorporates spiritual beliefs and metaphysical principles into many of his creative works. His recently released and self-published Traumzeit-TarotⓇ is creating a buzz in the worldwide Tarot community, so we caught up with Stefan to find out more about the man behind these intriguing designs.
Tarot Reflections: Was the artwork of your Tarot deck influenced by your work as a tattoo artist?
Stefan Beckhusen: Tattooing and the Traumzeit-TarotⓇ are two absolutely different things. I started tattooing as a young boy and while becoming more practiced I followed the great plan of evolution and became an airbrush-artist. My whole life tattooing was a basic of my way, but when I started to paint the first card I was mainly only busy in airbrush-design on custom cars or motorcycles. My further plans at that time were to make mural paintings at great walls. I opened my tattoo studio around the same time that I finished the Traumzeit-TarotⓇ.
TR: How does the artistic process of making a Tarot deck compare to giving a tattoo? Was your tattoo artistry influenced by the experience of creating a Tarot?
SB: One important thing about my knowledge of Tarot and symbolism that influences my work as a tattoo artist is that I think more about what I do and what I fix in the human skin. Before, my basic knowledge in symbolism was primitive, like the simple knowledge that a tiger’s head may represent somebody who will say, "Take care of me," or a lion's head will represent somebody who thinks to be king. Today, I know much more about the magic of all imagery. Some things should never be established in the human skin. In earlier times, I thought tattoos are the mirror of the soul. That's basic, but today, I know that tattoos can include real future-forming energies. For example, if a man and a girl wish to get tattooed a sign for their friendship, maybe everyone a half sign or a figure, it's important that if both stand side by side, the figures must look to each other, or the signs must be in harmony to each other, or else it would be absolutely destructive for the couple’s reality. Also, I think an ingenious artist with a wider range of knowledge and practice is a better tattoo artist than somebody who knows nothing about the secrets of life.
TR: What do you think is the best thing about your Tarot deck?
SB: It's the energy in the pictures, the easiness of understanding them for those who are open to let the pictures tell, the symbols that are chosen especially for every card, included just as they should be. The images of my Traumzeit-TarotⓇ tell a clear language. In a reading, you must only imagine what you would tell a little child to describe what happens in the card, and every client says, "Yes, that's true, it's my situation." Some people say there's too much dark energy in my cards; others note too many naked women. That's the beginning of how my cards tell something about them. In my cards, the darkness and the lightness both have their reality, like in the real life.
TR: What was the most fun part of making your own Tarot?
SB: The finish! Indeed, from the first card I painted, me and my girlfriend of that time felt the energy of that, even though we didn't look at the image and it was only behind our back. While creating the other cards, this power of symbolism absorbed my mind more and more. That was weird, because making the cards in my airbrush-mix technique needed a whole lot of time. For some cards, I needed up to 6 weeks, although I was working at it nearly every day.
TR: What was the hardest challenge in making your own Tarot deck?
SB: Like I said, the creation of each card affected my life, so you can imagine that I wouldn't want to create some of the cards that have a basically negative interpretation. These cards I had to create in a bulk at the end of it all.
TR: How many tattoos do you have, and which one is your favorite?
SB: Can't say a number, because they are flowing into each other. My favorite is a freaky nice devil on my lower arm. Except for two apes, all my tats are themed on the mysticism of classical and modern art.
TR: What is your favorite thing about Tarot cards?
SB: That's difficult to explain, although I've a clear mind about it. Tarot is a perfect system to get a higher intuition. Symbols, numbers, elements, astrology, and even the lines, are part of mind- and form-giving energies. As you practice it more and more with an open mind, you get a feeling for this, which enables you automatically to have more control about your future personal evolution. If you're not just practicing Tarot for intellectual reasons, or because it's trendy or spacey, you learn that all life and the whole universe is bounded in a system with rules and fails. The more you get in touch with this abstract mathematical and symbolic reality, the more you'll commit your fate and your skills to this truth. That makes the personal evolution smoother, and is a great chance for personal success in life. If I were to give tips for beginners, I would say, "Compare all numbers in your life with the Major Arcana.” If it's the number of the home, of the car-sign, the actual loudness-value of your TV, or whatever else, those are all processing energies in your life. The Major Arcana shows the way which you're just fixing.
TR: Do you think you'll ever make another Tarot deck?
SB: That may happen automatically. Besides my profession as a tattoo artist, I spend most of my free time and more in making 3D-Art. Without concrete planning, it happens sometimes that I create images that have a perfect Tarot relation. I have the idea to create sometime an extremely astrology-based Tarot oracle, but I'm sure if at anytime I make concrete plans, they will change. I have an idea for a new Tarot deck with an absolute sci-fi style, and this has developed without any special plans. Some first images are reserved for this. It will depend on my future experiences, if the investigation of self-publishing will offer good results and the demand of the market will allow me to do this.