Well, the new baby is like 8 months old now, but I made this little card when he was newer. Baby Amiel will be bilingual—his mother is American and his father is Spanish—so I wanted to make the card bilingual too. A is for alligator and apple in English, and árbol and abeja and amor in Español. Also, Amiel’s middle name is Willow so that tree is doing double duty.
Title for the Alphabet of Desire. The lettering is based on Gothic Versals.
I don’t remember where I first heard the term “Alphabet of Desire,” a magical device invented by artist Austin Osman Spare, but it was something that synchronistically popped up here and there, until it occupied a firm space in my mind. I went so far as to sketch out the ideas I would use in my own Alphabet of Desire, and would find them every couple months or so.
The first initial cap for my acrostic novella. The wood symbolizes the Tarot wands and the concept of generation. A sprouting stick signifies new beginnings and earthly ventures. The snake represents the mystic male generative principle.
At the same time, I had also been long kicking around an idea of writing a story whose plot was based on the Tarot’s journey of the Fool (i.e. a work of twenty-two segments, each based on a Major Arcana).
For every chapter of the Alphabet of Desire, I also do a page of hand drawn letters in various fonts, which serves as a centering exercise.
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