After seeing sneak peeks and behind-the-scenes pics from some of our favourite tattoo artists taking part in ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ we couldn’t help but be intrigued!
We caught up with Holly Astral, the woman behind ‘TAROT the art of Tarot’ and Gravity Tattoo Studio to find out more about the project and how you can get your own piece of it…
What inspired you to start the ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ project? It just came up spontaneously! Me and the girls in the shop love reading tarot, and one day we started talking about how fun it would be to design some tarot cards between us, and the idea for the show just clicked into place! Since I got the keys to the building that is now Gravity Tattoo Shop I’d always said I’d like to hold an art exhibition in the ground floor reception area, and this seemed perfect!
You’ve taken part in exhibitions at galleries across Europe and America, was this part of your motivation for the tarot project? Totally! Before I was a tattoo artist I was a toy designer, and ran my own line of designer toys. During that time I put on a couple of collaborative art shows in London, and one in LA. Each one showcased toys which has been customised by other designers in the industry and were so much fun to put on. My main motivation for this show and those that I’ve organised in the past is to showcase the talent of those around me – I figured I’d put on the kind of shows I’d like to attend.
What message do you hope to spread? I’m interested to get the conversation going about tarot cards, and how people view them. I am relatively new to the concept, having dabbled a little as a teenager. I had a very rough start to this year and got into it as I was looking for answers. I don’t believe in divination or mediums, rather my take on tarot is that whatever you latch onto within a reading is your subconscious trying to tell you about a part of your life you need to look a little deeper at, or maybe an answer that you already know and need permission to bring to the surface. We all have the answers to our problems inside of us and activities like tarot reading can help us to bring the answers to the surface.
The Tarot project aims to raise funds for Hula Animal Rescue, does that charity mean a lot to you? Absolutely! We raise money for them throughout the year, and last year put on a flash day to fund raise for them. Gravity is a vegan tattoo shop and animal welfare is important to us, Hula are a wonderful small charity doing great things for animals.
You’ve brought together 78 individual artists for the tarot project – how did you pick them? Well at first we were going to do just the 22 major arcana from the tarot deck, so we asked some friends if they’d like to design a card for the show and it just got bigger and bigger! Before I knew it we had the entire deck being created, we were just blown away by the response.
Is there a wide variety of styles, mediums and interpretations? It has been incredible seeing all the artwork come back for the show! We left it up to the artists how they wanted to create their cards – any medium was okay, the only proviso being that it needed to fit in an A4 frame for the show layout. We have paintings, drawings, digital artworks and even a couple of embroidered pieces in the show. Seeing how everyone interpreted their card’s meaning has been so fun to see, with so many unique and interesting designs coming back to us. All the pieces they’ve created for the show were available to purchase for £100 each (a steal!)
Will they only be available to purchase at the show? First dibs on purchasing artwork from the show will be given to everyone who attends on the night of the party (August 24th 6-9pm) with any remaining artworks sales being opened up to the internet in the weeks after the show.
Will tarot sets be available to purchase too? We can’t wait to do a reading with them! Yes! Pre-orders are now closed but were available through our big cartel: gravitytattoo.bigcartel.com/product/tarot-cards.
Celebrating the art, design and creativity of tattooing will the tarot project be exhibiting anywhere else before the pieces go to their new owners? Nope! Tarot is a one night event!
You used to create your own plush toys ‘Cavey’ and even exhibited at ToyCon, was this integral to deciding to create a physical product from the exhibition? My background in product and the toy industry definitely helped, and I also recognised that not everyone can afford £100 for an artwork and wanted to make an item that everyone could afford, so they can still contribute to the charity. Making the deck of cards seemed like the perfect idea, and a great way to showcase all the great art from the show! We enlisted the help of a local printers to help us make the cards as fab as possible.
This is your first exhibition at your studio Gravity Tattoo Shop, has doing the Tarot project given you a taste for curating tattoo art exhibitions again? Absolutely! We’ll be doing another, different show, next year!
Don’t miss the launch of ‘TAROT The Art of Tarot’ on August 24th at Gravity Tattoo Shop in Leighton Buzzard from 6pm- 9pm or follow over on Instagram for more information!
Interview by Amber Carnegie originally posted on the Barber DTS Tattoo Supplies blog.
We totally love your style, where do you get your inspiration from? Thank you so much! My style is so intrinsic to who I am, and what I am going through during certain periods of my life. My wardrobe has definitely seen its fair share of experimentations through the years, all of which were fundamental to the development of where my style is today… regardless of how on point (or not!) each look was during that process! As a child I loved to wear my beloved pair of leather trousers and studded heeled boots. Stomping around in them I would feel so “grown up” and empowered!
Tell us a little about all your tattoos… Currently I am only at the beginning of my tattoo journey, but so far it has been a very enriching and empowering process. My first tattoo with my dad will always be one of my most cherished experiences. I also have a pentacle hand poked on my sternum by @
This was never enough and I kept thinking of different ideas, which we sat and discussed together. Then I started getting tattooed every weekend, I absolutely loved it. I also became very friendly with Tef the tattooist, which always helps, and I completely trust him.
My grandkids, all 18 of them and another on the way, live very near to me, and sometimes my granddaughter comes in to see me when I am getting tattooed, she loves showing me off as her nan. Don’t think any of her friends have a nan quite like me, and they all seem to find it quite cool. My grandchildren call me Glam-ma and always bring their friends to meet me – they all say they wish their nan was more like me.
Tell us about your tattoo collection. When was your first? My first tattoo was a tiny roll of film on my left shoulder, it was done by Tyree Patrick of 
piece, I reached out to some specialists in lipedema asking about tattoos. They had no real information or studies on it. Basically, the replies back were: “Not really sure, but if you go through with it, update us afterwards.” It wasn’t until mid-summer last year that I realised I had already tattooed on lipedema damaged area with Ursula. It made a lot more sense looking back at how Ursula was harder to heal and seemed to be “too wet.” My thigh has been really tender during the actual tattooing. My skin puffs and pinks up in the lipedema areas pretty quickly and makes it more difficult for Ty to see the saturation of the ink. It also seeps lymph fluid, which can be annoying. 
Healing the thigh has been interesting. There is a very fine line of just enough ointment to keep it from being dry and cracking and too much that keeps it too wet that doesn’t allow it to scab over. The lymph fluid can cause some deep scabs which are really painful and sore. Ursula and The Muppets have been harder to heal than any of my other tattoos but not bad enough that it keeps me from completing my vision.
