What we're working on at BabaBarock

Last updated, 29/09/2022

We hope to keep this page up to date as we go along, so that you are informed about where we are with up and coming work.

We are currently working on three new decks, one of which is a tarot, while the others are fortune telling cards:

• A completely new Bohemian Cats' Theatre Tarot.
• Our own, Victorian-style The Bohemian Fortune Telling Cards,
• A re-imagining of antique Bohemian fortune telling cards which we have named Mercury's Fortune Telling Cards.
  

We are getting lots of enquiries about the new Baroque Bohemian Cats' Theatre Tarot. But please be patient - it will take us at least until late 2023/4 to complete.

It isn't a reprint or new version of the original Baroque Bohemian Cats' Tarot; it's an entirely new deck - all the images take place in the dramatic setting of a baroque theatre. We make every costume (loosely based on Baroque clothing) by hand - including designing our own unique embroideries, lace and hats. The project will, as usual, include a companion book. For the first time, there will also be an accompanying art book that will show gloriously expanded scenes from the cards. You can find more about what's going on at The Bohemian Cats blog - we'd love to see you there.

For all of this crazy work, the miniature clothing patterns are also, of course, entirely our own. So it's a slow process, but does produce uniquely detailed imagery. Things were held up by two lockdowns (which we know were necessary) but we are still hopeful of having the work done by late 2023 or 2024 - all being well.

If you haven't yet seen the first video of our design process (made a few days before lockdown in March 2020!), please do take a look.

A first sample - not final - image from our planned Bohemian Cats book. We will also be making a large-format book (for adults who love cats, costumes and more than a touch of surrealism) that will relate to the deck.

We are near to finishing our two decks of "Bohemian fortune telling cards". These follow the system, which we were very familiar with during our time in Prague, often called "gypsy cards" and in Czech known usually just as "vykladaci karty", which can be loosely translated as "cards for doing readings". In the companion book for these decks, we will outline the history, how to read with them and, of course, we will explain why we chose not to use the term "gypsy cards".

On the picture here you can see two of the cards that we have already completed and printed (as first samples). You may find that you got a small present of these in an order! The samples have plain backs but the final cards will have our usual cold-stamped - and we hope beautiful - backs.

You can see some of the original Victorian photos that we will (probably) be incorporating in the designs. We base everything on original photos, often changed, added to and even remade in part, so that we end up with the image we feel will work best.

Here are some of the newest cards. We are following the traditional pattern but this in itself did vary so, for example, not every deck will include "gossip" (see above). We've chosen the card meanings that we think will make a well-balanced and very usable deck.

We've also decided to do 36 rather than the more usual 32 cards. It gives a good range of possibilities in a reading and still respects tradition as some of these decks did include 36 cards.

We are also close to completing our re-imagining (with cold-stamping!) of an antique deck in this Bohemian style. It's always been one of our favourites of these antique decks and has some wonderful cards. It's been a pleasure to work on cleaning and enhancing the images.

We've decided to call it a "re-imagining" rather than a reproduction because we're adding cold-stamping and this does make it clear that's it's a recently produced deck. We feel it adds beautifully to the original images.