September 30th, 2013
They’re here! At long last, the Red Deck of the Tacoma Playing Cards is finished, printed and delivered.
(You’ll have to excuse my cheesy phone photos—I was just too excited to dig out the fancy camera.)
It’s so great to see the finished product, and how well everyone’s artwork reproduced at playing-card size. But you can also see the originals—if you’re local, stop by the big launch party this Friday, October 4 in downtown Tacoma. If not, you can find all the originals for sale on the Tacoma Makes website.
I illustrated the Queens again—and in the process, saw some secret pockets of Tacoma I’d never visited before.
I also got to revisit some old favorites,
get to know some beloved institutions,
and even discover hidden corners of old haunts.
But best of all is the feeling of seeing both decks together. Maybe now I’ll finally learn how to play Bridge…
June 28th, 2013
More than a thousand towns and cities in the U.S. are lucky enough to have had a Carnegie Library under their belt, and Tacoma is no exception. Today, our Carnegie Library is a wing of the expanded main campus of the Tacoma Public Library—and the rotunda now houses the fabulous Northwest Room, the ultimate resource for Tacoma and Northwest history. It’s a gorgeous space, and beloved in these here parts. So I figured it would be a perfect addition to the Red Deck of the Tacoma Playing Cards.
I didn’t think they’d take kindly to me breaking out the watercolors in a room full of rare books, but I was at least able to do the line drawing on-site. (‘Scuse the wobbly iPhone photo.) And that’s always a tricky prospect for me—I always do as much drawing from life possible, but I’d much rather disappear into the woodwork while doing so. My drawings are always better when I can concentrate uninterrupted. The trouble is, the only place I can consistently sketch in public without anyone noticing me is New York. Here in Tacoma—where I run into someone I know at least once a day—it’s a different story.
In the Northwest Room there was a table right in front of me, which would have made me far less conspicuous while sketching. But in order to get the point of view I wanted, I had to stand dead-center in an aisle, right in the middle of the room. Yet not once in the hour-plus I stood there, sticking out like a sore thumb and obviously not doing what people normally do in there, did anyone bother me—or ask me what the heck I was doing, or make eye contact, or even register my existence.
I think I just found my new favorite sketching spot.
May 28th, 2013
I had no idea we’d get here so quickly, but here we are. It’s been just under a year since we first launched the Tacoma Playing Cards project, and I’m happy to report that we’ve nearly sold out our initial print run of 5,000 decks! And we’ve had so many requests from Bridge players (and other folks who love multi-deck games) that we’re now working on a second deck—this time in red. (No worries if you haven’t snagged your Blue Deck yet; we’re printing a second run of those, as well.)
The overall design will be largely the same, with a few little exceptions (can you spot the difference in the box above?), and I’ll be contributing illustrations for another suite of face cards. But other than that, we’re reshuffling the deck completely—we’ve got 13 new artists on board, and a whole new batch of Tacoma icons to highlight.
Sales from the Blue Deck are funding the new Red Deck, so we won’t be doing a Kickstarter project this time. Instead, we’re taking pre-orders (at a discount!), and the Red Deck will be available in mid-October of this year. And you can already snag archival giclée prints of the Blue Deck artwork—as well as the one-of-a-kind originals.
Look for more sneak peeks later, as I finish my illustrations for the decks. In the meantime…go fish!
January 12th, 2013
This weekend has given us that rarest of Northwest treats: winter sunshine. When that happens it’s also usually too cold to stand outside and draw, but this time it was worth the frozen fingertips to mark the occasion in my new daily book. That’s because the restoration of one of my favorite Tacoma landmarks is finally complete.
The Point Defiance Pagoda is one of the jewels in Tacoma’s crown. Built ninety-nine years ago, it began as a streetcar station and now stands as the centerpiece of our largest city park. It’s also a recurring character in my work—besides being iconic, it’s awfully fun to draw.
Detail of Continuum
It’s easy to forget how delicate our historic structures are, however. While I was working on this very portion of my Link Light Rail station design, I got word that the building was suddenly on the verge of ruin. Some kid had intentionally set fire to the pagoda—a few minutes of destructive boredom, and a hundred years went up in flames.
It was heartbreaking to hear the tales of Metro Parks officials, who had to watch firefighters toss the century-old ceramic roof tiles to the concrete ground to reach the burning beams inside.
In a way, though, maybe it’s a good thing it was the pagoda that burned, versus a lesser-known historic building. The public rallied, and restoration began almost immediately. Seven thousand roof tiles were hand-cleaned and reattached, and all fourteen of the original windows were salvaged. The restoration also allowed for the reintroduction or improvement of elements that had been remodeled away over the years—like the planting circle out front, or lighting that highlights the ornate roof beams inside (replacing the 1960s-era sconces that had been glommed on).
One of my illustrations for the Tacoma Playing Cards—you can find the original painting here
And now it’s as if the fire never happened. More than that—at today’s grand reopening celebration I got a good glimpse of its original glory. Somehow I couldn’t quite repress the feeling that a streetcar might come around the corner at any moment.
My favorite part is that I no longer have to rely solely on a deck of cards for good memories of the pagoda. Now I can resume my visits to the real thing—sketchbook in hand, as always.
June 29th, 2012
My brain is chock full of useless information—I could sing you about 35,000 ad jingles on key, or recite Jurassic Park or Trading Places or a hundred other movies line-for-line. But don’t challenge me to a game of Poker, because I have a terrible head for card games. I love playing them, and am always up for learning when friends come over a suggest a rubber of something or other. The trouble is, I forget the rules right away—so whenever I sit down to a rematch, it’s like starting at square one.
As an example, I used to do summer stock theatre, and we techies had a tradition of playing Hearts backstage during the sound check. So I played Hearts every night for two months straight, three summers in a row, and I still can’t remember the rules now. (Something about being saddled with the Queen of Spades, and lots of half-joking shouted epithets surrounding that card, but that’s about it.)
Over the years I have learned and forgotten dozens of card games—including Snap, President, Pitch, Five Card Draw, Seven Card Stud, Crazy Eights, Kings Corners, Egyptian Ratscrew, Spades, Slapjack, Pig, Cheat, Five Hundred, Hand & Foot, Whist—and probably plenty of others that I’ve even forgotten the name for.
About the only games I can ever keep in my head are the embarrassingly simple ones like War, Go Fish, Old Maid and Blackjack. Oh, and I can play Cribbage like a fiend, because my dad and his Scottish friend Alex taught me when I was nine or ten. We used to have hilariously cutthroat wee-lass-vs.-grown-man Cribbage tournaments on a regular basis, so how could I ever forget that?
Being lousy at remembering any card games, however, hasn’t stopped me from wanting to design a card game. Or collecting interesting or unusual decks (the Tailor and I have a good dozen in regular rotation). So when my friends Maija and Amy asked me to be the designer on the poker deck they were dreaming up, I think must have freaked them out by shouting, “YES!” before they’d even finished their sentence.
(And as an added bonus, I got first dibs on my favorite Tacoma haunts.)
These gals weren’t looking for any old run-of-the-mill card deck, either. They wanted to show off Tacoma in all her architectural splendor. And since we’re blessed with a veritable boatload of fabulously talented artists in this town, they decided to divvy up the deck by ranks—with fourteen artists, each tackling a list of locations in four-of-a-kind fashion. I loved being the first to see the collection of incredible artwork come down the pike from these folks. Everybody involved in the project has gone above and beyond our wildest imagination—I can’t wait to see the finished deck.
Beyond just creating something beautiful and fun, Amy and Maija have their eyes on a bigger prize. They want to create a real, no-kidding Tacoma souvenir. We get a lot of visitors and tourists around here, what with the Sound and the Mountain and the Universities and what-have-you—but you’d be hard-pressed to find Tacoma-specific tchotchkes (or even postcards!) that aren’t sarcastic. And I know I’m not the only one around here who’s a little tired of folks knockin’ T-town, based solely on a stereotype and a thirty-year-old reputation. So we’re upping the ante a little, and offering a bit of hard evidence that Tacoma is pretty dern great.
You know my schtick by now, so you can guess that all the lettering and pattern doo-dads are hand-drawn. I had the pleasure of designing the suits, rank typography, card face template, card backs and box.
I even got to design the logo for Maija and Amy’s company, Tacoma Makes. Basically, it was the kind of project I’m always on the lookout for, but which rarely lands in my lap. So I spent about half of the time grinning my fool head off, and the other half pinching myself in disbelief.
I also got to flex my file-production muscles. I love to geek out over the technical side of design, but since I started my business, much of my production work has centered around letterpress printing. So playing with dielines and spot color swatches again was a nice little challenge.
We’re taking all these extra steps because this is a real, bona fide, professional-grade poker deck. The kind folks at the U.S. Playing Card Company are manufacturing the cards for us—they’re the people behind the Bicycle, Bee, Hoyle and other card brands. So you won’t have to hedge your bets that this deck will be extra tasty.
To raise funds for the card printing, and even pay for modest artist contracts, we set up a Kickstarter project (much like the Apocalypse Calendar that you all so graciously funded last year). Now normally this would be where I explain that Kickstarter projects are only funded if they reach their entire monetary goal by the deadline—but I don’t have to! I left town for a few days, just after the project launch, with the intention of spreading the word when I got home. So imagine how floored I was to come back and discover that we’d met our goal in just six days!
The response to this has been staggering. And it’s not only the lovely legions of fellow Tacomans who have supported us—we’re seeing pledges come in from all over the country. And as a nerdy fan-girl aside, I just have to squeal and tell you that Neko Freaking Case (a hometown Tacoma gal) has been retweeting my designs in the Twitterverse. Dorky internet hero fantasy: fulfilled, folks.
The Kickstarter project will run through July 19, so you can still contribute if you want to get in on rewards and goodies that are only available to backers. Otherwise, the cards will be in hand and dealt out this November—along with an exhibition of all the original artwork.
There’s even a rumor of an artist game night in the works, so cut the cards! I’m up for any game you’re willing to teach me—as long as you don’t mind that I’ll probably forget the rules before the night is through.
In the meantime, thank you so much for all your support for our crazy card deck! I’ve said it before, and I’ll say it again—Tacomans (and honorary Tacomans!) are the best folks on earth.
• • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • •
Edited to add (fall 2013): The blue deck has been so popular that we have done a red deck as a sequel! The new deck features all new artwork and artists—you can read more about it here.
![Chandler O'Leary [logo]](https://chandleroleary.com/wp-content/themes/chandleroleary/images/logo.png){kind=logo}
