Cody Thomas

Project 5: My Childhood Memory

“The Fool”, Mixed media on mat board, 17”x22”, 6/5/2022.

“Death”, Mixed media on mat board, 17”x22”, 6/5/2022.
“Tarot Reading”, Mixed media on mat board, 34”x44”, 6/5/2022.
For this project, I wanted to make two pieces of work that relate to one another. I chose to use two – 17” x
22” mat boards to make tarot cards. When laid out for the purpose of the Death card is upside down and
joined together it measures 34”x44”. One “The Fool” card and one “Death” card. I used a lot of different
media. I began with the tie-dye (the fool) and the clouds/whirlwind (death) using acrylic paints. I then used
heavy-weight 4-ply Strathmore Bristol boards to use to draw the cliff, the waves, and the skeleton. The cliff
was created with Micron pens and watercolors, the waves were created with alcohol markers, and the
skeleton was drawn with a medium charcoal pencil. After I finished those pieces, I cut them out and glue them
onto the mat boards in the desired places. The clouds in the sky are to mimic smoke being blown into and out
of my lungs. The sunflower is the sun but also a metaphor for good luck and happiness.

I worked with Illustrator drawing more pieces such as the flowers, plants, and clouds. I used mixed media
paper with oil paints to contour paint faces as well as highlighting areas with pen and sharpie. I then scanned
those into Photoshop and placed the rest of the work onto each piece accordingly.

“The Fool” tarot card represents the fool (a child), honest and curious, flying a kite. The kite, and the kid on a
cliff, all mean the same thing: high as a kite. As the kid (myself) continues to run towards the end of the cliff
bad things are about to unfold. The waves mimic The Great Waves of Kanagawa, beautiful but also chaotic as
this was the feeling of my first experience smoking marijuana. This was also a painting I was looking at minutes
before I began having my seizures. The tie-dye is one of the typical psychedelic images that relate to being
high or that would categorize someone as a “stoner” if they were to wear this design. On the cliff, poppies
stand alone as they symbolize “not yet free/I am not free”. I may have been ‘high’ but I never felt free as it
made me paranoid.

The “Death” tarot card represents my experience of having grand mal seizures and flat-lining twice on my way
to the hospital. The grim reaper skeleton holds in the air a brain signifying the memory loss that I have
experienced since my seizures. To me, memories are just as important as ‘dying’; therefore, I did not want to
place a heart there. In the storm/whirlwind, which symbolized the shaking and tremoring of my seizing, you
can find faces of friends and family. The light in the middle is the small speck of light I saw when I was
pronounced dead. In the hospital, when I woke up, all I could feel was guilt. Also scared. The faces are in pain
and agony. The weeping willow tree stands for my friends and family crying but also is a metaphor as it stands
for immortality. In my childhood home, I spent a lot of time under this tree thinking about what happened and
what could have happened. It’s also a tree that my grandparents planted when I was a newborn. To me in the
artwork, and in real life, it is the tree of life. Lastly, the daffodils at the bottom of the work are a metaphor for
“sorrow”, “regrets”, and “things follow you to your grave”.