The Progression of Considerate Cat Tarot

Hi Everyone,

Welcome to Considerate Cat Tarot! I started this deck as a project for myself close to two years ago. I was in art school for a year before I switched to a different program. (Why did I do that?!). I found the best way to improve my skills was to focus on one project that would carry me through a long period of time. I loved it when you had a semester long project and you’d work on one thing for that time period. So I assigned myself a tarot deck project. The “78daysofcattarot”.

It took about a year to complete the whole thing and originally, I had never intended to publish it. I had no idea people would want it! That seems silly now but everyone was asking about the deck and if I was going to publish it. So I actually submitted to a traditional publisher. One of the big ones that publishes quirky notebooks and board games. They replied pretty quickly and said they really loved my work but they had something similar coming out that year so they wouldn’t be able to move forward with my project. I was sad for about a day,  and then I shared my rejection with everyone on social media.

I had a friend reach out and say to me ” What are you doing, why don’t you self publish?” Which I immediately felt was just exhausting. But of course, it ended up being a way better way to go in the end. A publisher would have taken a lot of my creative licence. They wouldn’t have allowed me to part of many of the steps taken to publish and it would still be in production instead of in everyones hands as it is now.

So I put it up on kickstarter and it was a huge success. I’m still overwhelmed by the reaction. It was even more than I could have ever imagined. Soooooo many people were there supporting the project. It was something that I created from start to finish. I got to make all of the decisions and of course everything fell heavily on my shoulders. It’s amazing to me how well it worked out in the end. I still thank each and every one of you for even reading this or buying a deck or sharing on social media. This is a project from  my heart to the world and I’m so happy you’re here to experience it with me.’

Kindly,

Madeleine