Holiday Recommendation Guest Post: Emmy Bright

Caitlin Cali
Soothsayer Deck
Providence, RI: Caitlin Cali Studio, 2016
Box and Cards 4 x 7 inches, 34 cards, 6 pp book.
Silkscreen printed cards, book, screenprinted box
Rolling Edition
Price: $60 + shipping

This deck of Soothsaying Cards showcases Caitlin Cali’s exquisite drawing style, wild mind and deft hand work.  Over the last 14 years, she has consistently produced paintings and printed matter that overflow with her perverse joy, magical thinking, deep knowing, and dense imagery created through combinations of private language of characters and symbols.  The Soothsayer Deck is a coherent set of mystical, gorgeous and merciless images.  The booklet offers a gentle guide to doing readings and looking at the work.  This is an affordable, mystical and compact entry point into Caitlin’s larger body of work.  Printed on kraft colored Chipboard in four different colors, each card offers a prophetic image: love orbs, man cats, the shape of a candle, a horde of crows.  Unlike traditional Tarot with it’s hierarchies and archetypes,  this project joins Cali’s particular visual vocabulary of characters with the structure of chance operations and “readings” to make a powerful set of images for self reflection and story telling.   Her style and visible handwork is parallel to some of my favorite folk artists, and earnest in its expression. You can look for answers in her:  blood droplets, mortal wounds, cripples being healed in secret gardens, slash hearts, scar faces, cute babies, wormholes, baby seal eyes, extreme love, sepulcher houses, eye snakes, death crust, hell ladders, heaven ladders, purifying fires, lightening hate, witch curses, god blessings, true glory, and mercilessly ecstatic visions.

You can follow, contact and place orders through Instagram messaging @caitlin.m.cali   https://www.instagram.com/caitlin.m.cali/ or email her at caitlin.m.cali@gmail.com


Emmy Bright is an artist working in print media, performance and writing. She has exhibited and performed recently at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Detroit, MI, Distillery Gallery in Boston, MA, Ditch Projects in Eugene, OR, and Yve Yang Projects in New York City, NY.  Recent residencies and fellowships include the Haystack Open Studio Residency, Penland School of Crafts winter Residency, the Ox-Bow School of Art Summer Residency and a Studio 2-3 Residency in Richmond, VA.  A project of hers was recently featured in Headmaster Magazine No. 8 (an art magazine for man-lovers), and she is working on an exhibition for Quirk Gallery in Richmond, VA.  She lives and works in Detroit where she is represented by the David Klein Gallery.