I’m reaching across time zones and oceans to speak to Chelsey Pippin Mizzi, author of Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Purpose. It’s late for her, midday for me between two meetings, and she has the sparkling exhaustion of an author with a freshly published book.
“If we’re doing a video, I’m going to need more concealer,” she says as I press record on our call.
Cover to Tarot for Creativity: A Guide for Igniting Your Creative Practice by Chelsey Pippin Mizzi [Chronicle Books]
I’ll admit when I found out that Mizzi’s life work was working with creatives, I thought oh god, that has to be the worst group to work with.
But Mizzi’s tarot practice began as a humble creative asking for direction on a writing project.
“My very first experience was in asking the cards about a novel I was writing at the time and it wasn’t going anywhere.” A friend with a tarot deck encouraged skeptical Mizzi to ask for guidance, and the rest is history. “Up until that point, so much of my writing had been informed by visuals. I wrote from paintings and photographs a lot, I wrote a lot of fan fiction growing up. I was in the theatre so I was really interested in taking a script and turning it into a new piece of art. And then suddenly there were these three pocket-sized pictures that were inviting me to consider creative ideas.”
Tarot for Creativity features writeups, spreads, and creative prompts for every card in the deck. From majors to minors, the book encourages activities and frameworks to bring new ideas to the table.
Mizzi runs workshops and classes for struggling artists, and I asked what the most common challenges were for her clients.
“I think it comes down to two things, really,” she says. “They are just blocked and they don’t know how to move forward and need a sounding board, and tarot is a great one. You never know what direction it will send you in. I see a lot of writers who have written themselves into corners, and they are delighted by the play of pulling a card and coming up with ideas. There is something about drawing in the random – bringing in something outside of you.”
The casual tone of Mizzi’s work is intentional; instead of the stoic or brisk tone of the wizened magician, you’re just sitting at a kitchen table telling a story.
“The other thing is a trifecta of loneliness, fear, and burnout that creatives face,” she says. “Writing and visual art can be very isolating, really any artform that isn’t built into a community. It’s very difficult and competitive and demanding, and they are tired and need a glimmer of something outside of the traps their brains create. Tarot holds space for the hard stuff and offers advice and care.”
Chelsey Pippin Mizzi [Graham Maw Christie Agency]
It’s clear that for Mizzi, tarot is a safe place and has been a huge turning point in her writing life.
And the creative act of cultivating community through tarot has made support more accessible. Through writing about tarot, her publishing career bloomed and her seminar and coaching business branched out.
I ask Mizzi how many of her clients are skeptics walking in. “Most of them!” she says, laughing.
It turns out exhausted and lonely artists will put their doubts aside in order to better connect to their work. “I want tarot to be playful and as accessible as possible,” she says. “I’m very laissez faire about it, which I think makes it approachable.”
Because Tarot for Creativity is a workbook, and ultimately full of suggestions, readers who are looking for a singular truth will find themselves frustrated and even in opposition.
“I very much hope that there is disagreement,” Mizzi insists, reacting to my probing. “I hope we all have different interpretations and I hope this book opens up room for people to determine their own perspective on the cards.” I appreciate a practitioner who likes feedback, and Mizzi’s model is about getting your hands dirty. “You won’t get anything done if you’re busy setting up the rules,” she says.
The elements of play are crucial to Mizzi, adding elements of joy to a dark investigation of interpersonal exploration. So much about art is a deliverable, and it’s refreshing to have the book be about the pathway rather than the product.
“It’s not really art if all it is what we sell.”
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