Eight of Pentacles

Artist: Sarah Pavey

For this card I was inspired by Pamela Coleman Smith’s design featuring a craftsman making all the pentacles with a chisel. Looking for similar photos of Bauhaus women at work I found a photo of Anni Albers who was sitting at a loom. The divinatory meanings from the Smith deck include work, employment, commission, and craftsmanship. This can evoke a feeling of capitalism and one might think of a production assembly line but there is more meaning to be found. Marmolejo states in Red Tarot that the Eight of Pentacles communicates how “reality can be defined by something [other than] our oppression” (319). While there were many women producing the same kind of art, the school fostered unique designs from all women in the Bauhaus movement. I used images of some of the most notable women figures for the pentacles. Each face reminds us how our work has the capacity to be more than conformity and physical production.