Deviation Actions
Description
(2015), graphite pencils on paper, 5.5"x10.5" backed with digital frame.
The card signifies the course of life through what is perceived as luck and misfortune. It stands for human nature between instinct, intellect and spirit and for change and chance. It advises us to use opportunities to our advantage, to risk something, to see the bigger picture, and to try and play fate ourselves.
Fortune traditionally shows a wheel with figures perched on it, some rise to fame and fortune, others fall into poverty and misery. This makes the card ambivalent, because if we are currently in a position of good fortune, things may take a turn for the worse. If we are feeling that life has dealt us a bad hand, however, we may be able to look forward to more auspicious times.
For my card I kept the iconography of the wheel, in the form of a modern roulette wheel, but I added some elements that for me are an essential component of interpreting this card. On the one hand the chances that life gives us can be random, and we do not have control over many things that happen to us. We can't pick when or to whom we're born or if we are maimed or killed in some random, senseless accident. To me that is the spin of the wheel. You can make your bet, but chance may or may not reward you for it, and in the end the house always wins. To emphasize that point I added a strand of DNA bisecting the card, because what you're born with is how you start out in life.
On the other hand we are not completely helpless victims of fate, and the pair of cards below the wheel signifies that we also have the ability to influence what happens to us. The Ace and Jack are the winning card combination at Blackjack, adding up to 21, and of all games of chance Blackjack actually is the one where the player has the best chances of winning and skills like card-counting can really skew things in your favor. The Latin sentence at the bottom of the card makes that point "faber est suae quisque fortunae" means " everyone is the maker of their own fate".
If you pull this card in a spread, you can be sure that the wind will change direction. If you're at the bottom of the pile, you'll get your chance, if you're on top of the world, better watch out, that's the roulette part of the card. But the Wheel of Fortune also encourages you to take responsibility for your life, to master the changes that come your way and to take control of your destiny.
