The idea for the 2009 calendar started with finding different years that began on the same day of the week as 2009. After gathering a list of years that fit the criteria, I searched for interesting events that happened during those years. A major discovery was finding the burning of the Wrightsville Bridge event that occurred in 1863. Wrightsville was the town where my paternal relatives lived for generations and where I lived for two decades beginning in the 2000’s. Another interesting coincidence was that my own birth year of 1959 was available in the list of years that used the same calendar as 2009.
I picked the most interesting events I could find for each year. I wanted to find a way to represent the events in an interesting way. I think it was THE TRAVELER idea for the Mercury Seven astronauts that put me on the track to employ a Tarot card motif on the events. The Tarot card of The Fool has an individual stepping of a cliff into the unknown. My astronaut was stepping off the earth to reach for the moon. Another feature of the Fool card was a dog nipping at the heel of the fool. In my TRAVELER card the dog became the Soviet symbol coming up fast behind the astronaut’s leg. The astrological symbol for Mercury became a representation of the rocket taking the explorer into space. I enjoyed creating symbols to depict the event in the card.
I tried to relate all the events to an existing Tarot card. They worked pretty well and if they didn’t I made some card titles up. An example would be the card for the burning of the Wrightsville bridge. I called the card THE CROSSING. Instead of naming them Tarot Cards, I came up with TIME CARDS. For December I decided to go to a future year with a time travel event. Each page would have two cards with two months side by side. It was a purely cost saving decision so that I could have a two-sided three sheet calendar printed instead of a card for each month with twelve sheets. When pairing up the cards on a sheet I found ways to relate the two cards. For example, THE CHARIOT and THE TRAVELER were paired and titled “Breaking Barriers”.
Since that calendar was printed I have produced single cards as prints on a background reflecting the theme of the card. Here are some examples https://hammerartstudio.com/portfolio/the-hanged-man/. The year 2026 also uses the 2009 calendar so I have decided to revisit this idea focusing on three events in 1863. The cards can be found here. https://hammerartstudio.com/portfolio/1863-american-arcana-cards/ The calendars will be available for purchase at my various shows. Check the events tab.
Next Time: Calendar 2010: SEASON HERALDS
