About: The Black Cat Oracle Cards
Hi, I’m Christopher Gendron. I’m the artist that painted both the Black Cat Oracle Cards and the Prophecy Cards. Here’s a little more background and a brief intro of both myself and Juniper Talbot. Juniper is the wonderful person that agreed to write the thorough and informative instructions that are included with every deck of Black Cat Oracle Cards.
I met Juniper while taking one of her instructional classes on reading Tarot. I found her to be very friendly and knowledgeable and she has a wonderful energy. Couple that with her many years of experience as a psychic and card reader and we have a wealth of knowledge to learn from. I knew that if I were going to work on an oracle deck I wanted her to be the one that I worked with for the instructions and guidance to be sure the cards were accurate and the instructions were both thorough and easy to understand for a beginner like myself.
Several years later I decided to participate in the art challenge ‘Inktober’. It’s a challenge that takes place every day throughout the month of October where the participant attempts to do a new drawing (usually ink) every day, ending with 31 new drawings at the end of the month. I knew this was going to be challenging but I also knew it was the perfect opportunity for me to create almost an entire deck of cards for a Lenormand deck as a full deck is 36 cards. At the end of the month I only had 5 more cards to do!
I had decided about a month earlier that I wanted to do a Lenormand deck as I’d been looking into them for a while as something I may want to create. Inktober seemed a perfect kickoff to get me going. My other challenge was how to make the cards stand out from all of the other decks out there in the world. I went through a lot of ideas of what might make a good theme for a deck, with nature and witchcraft being strong ideas I was considering. While still kicking around ideas I was out on a bike ride and wearing my bike jersey that has a black cat’s head on the front and back. I pulled over to take a short break and was still thinking about ideas when I looked down to grab my water bottle and saw the giant black cat head on my chest. Of course! Two ideas hit me, black cats, and Max. I could do the entire deck with black cats as an homage to my previous cat Max and I knew it would be something I’d enjoy painting. It was a win win. I got back on my bike and started peddling, immediately thinking of the different ideas for the cards and how I could incorporate black cats into them.
The next step was reaching out Juniper to ask her if she’d be interested in writing the instructional booklet for the cards. She graciously said yes and sounded very excited about the project. I was super happy that she agreed to work together to make such a great deck of cards and instructions that people can both enjoy as works of art but can also learn a lot from by using Juniper’s instructions. She put a lot of time and work into covering a wide variety of topics, from keywords and descriptions of the cards to how to ask a question to reading the cards and understanding how the cards work together. She did an amazing job and I’ve received numerous compliments on how clear and well the instructions are written. I’m very proud of how well the cards and instructions have come together as a full set and I think you’ll really love them if you decide to welcome them into your life.
About Juniper:
Juniper Talbot is a witch, a writer and a psychic who works with many divination systems. These include tarot, ogam, dream work and other forms of cartomancy. She has been a professional tarot reader and teacher since the mid 1980’s. Juniper lives in the hills of western Massachusetts with her cats. She can be contacted at: Juniper Tree and junipertalbot@gmail.com
About Christopher:
Christopher Gendron (ARTmuffin) is a visionary artist living in Western Massachusetts. His work is mystical and mysterious by nature and often presents the viewer with more questions than answers. The power and mysticism of cartomancy has always been alluring for the artist. Upon the discovery of the Lenormand divination system he was inspired to create his own version of the cards with the curious, clever, and always magical Black Cat.
Christopher is also the author/illustrator of the Planet COVID-19 Field Journal, which you can learn more about here.