Malpertuis Designs Ltd

14/08/2018

It is with much sadness that I must notify all Malpertuis followers of the sudden and untimely passing of Neil. This had been a dream of his for over 20 years, and just as his vision has begun to be realised, he has been taken from us, all too soon.
He will missed those who had the pleasure to know him, and by those who admired his work.
For anyone with an outstanding order, please email [email protected], and I will do my best to answer your queries.

09/06/2018

The Light Lenormand decks have now arrived from the printers and are available for purchase. I have contacted all those people who have already reserved copies of the deck.

The deck has been printed in a limited edition of 1000 copies. The first 100 decks sold include six free A6 colour postcards illustrating selected images from the deck. All decks include a printed certificate including the deck number and the owner's name.

The deck comprises 36 main cards, two alternative Man and Woman cards (included for readers who wish to carry out readings into same-sex relationships), a Joker, and a title card.

Card dimensions are 57.5mm x 89mm (standard bridge size), and are printed on 300gsm board and finished with UV varnish. Cards come supplied in a full colour tuckbox.

A full colour 40 page instruction booklet for the deck is available as a PDF download. Instructions for downloading will be included with invoices.

See more details about the deck on its own page at http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/light-lenormand.html

06/06/2018

18/05/2018

Latest update from the print factory

09/05/2018

This week's draw is the Six of Coins from the Tyldwick Tarot (2013).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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SIX OF COINS

My heart always sinks whenever I'm in church and see 'All Things Bright and Beautiful' on the hymnsheet: I've never been able to understand how a song which is so impossible to sing for most people (at least those with a limited range like mine) ever established itself as a favourite. The low notes are too low, the high notes are too high: you can hear the congregation straining.

I only noticed quite recently that in recent years a verse which was still included during my childhood has generally disappeared - The rich man in his castle / The poor man at his gate / He made them high, or lowly / And ordered their estate. It's obvious why it's quietly slipped out of use - even when I was younger it struck me as somewhat odd to find a hymn endorsing the class system and laying the credit (rather than the blame) for it at God's own door. He ordered their estate - really? Drawing the Six of Coins this week, and thinking about those missing lines, made me remember the intentions I had - several years ago now - when I designed the card for the Tyldwick Tarot.

The card is usually read as advising balanced attitudes to money, and as a warning against money becoming too important within one's life. I can certainly relate to that. Throughout my life I've known people (and have to an extent myself lived) across an entire spectrum of incomes, and I'm quite convinced that extreme wealth often provides no surer a guarantee of happiness than extreme poverty. Having too much can become as much of a trap as having too little. Sometimes it's the case that the more you have, the more you need (with the damage to the soul that eventually causes). Sometimes it's that the more you have, the more you feel you have to lose (with all the stress and worry attached to that). Far wiser, perhaps, to avoid going too high or too low - because too far up or down the scale and you'll end up hurting your throat.

02/05/2018

Again, apologies for a late post. I have been away a lot over the past three weeks.

This week's draw is the Scythe from the Classic Crime Lenormand (2018).

You can read previous weekly draws at:
http://malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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SCYTHE

Earlier in life I entangled myself in two thoroughly toxic relationships that each lasted several years, the memory of which still makes me sweat. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the second occurred almost immediately after the first - but was in so many respects identical to it that sometimes I actually wonder, several years later, just quite how I managed to repeat the earlier disaster so quickly and with such meticulous precision. In both cases I was manipulated and bullied by the other person; in both cases my own passive aggression drove the other person insane with frustration. Both situations were untenable, and eventually culminated in my deciding to walk. Both times I was devastated, but I recognise in retrospect that it was the right, and absolutely necessary, action to take - for me and the other parties. Since leaving, I have never seen either person ever again.

Making a break - for good - is always difficult, especially when locked inside a deep cycle of emotional co-dependency (which strongly characterised both of these relationships). It's easy to convince oneself that any relationship, even a damaging one, is better than none at all. Saying a final goodbye requires the conquering of many personal fears: of being alone, of being judged, of worrying that you're making a mistake you'll later regret.

But as the famous saying goes, sometimes a desperate disease requires a dangerous remedy. That sentiment often feels particularly relevant to those intolerable situations which the Scythe usually illustrates. It's one of the most direct Lenormand cards in the message it carries: enough is enough; this just cannot carry on and needs to end; you need to get out of here, fast. As terrifying as that can be, I find another message hidden within the card: that if you're brave enough to leave, if you can cut yourself free from the toxin, you will survive. It may hurt at first - but you will get better.

06/04/2018

Apologies that I haven't been able to do a draw for a couple of weeks - I've been having some technical problems with the Malpertuis website which I think I've now resolved.

This week's overdue draw, then, is the Hermit from the Tyldwick Tarot (2013).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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HERMIT

As an introvert who can happily forgo face-to-face conversation for weeks, I do sometimes wonder why a preference for isolation is so difficult for many people to understand - or even to tolerate. My own monastic tendency is quite regularly criticised as 'unhealthy' or 'unnatural' - even though to me it feels entirely comfortable. So drawing the Hermit this week prompts me to consider: why is withdrawal - the simple fact of just preferring to be on one's own - still so often considered such an eccentric lifestyle choice? And why do so many people sometimes regard it as a moral failure?

It probably comes from Aristotle's definition of man as a social animal: for the best part of two thousand years, the passage in the Politics about society preceding the individual has been integral to the Western concept of civic duty. As often happens, Aristotle says more than is usually quoted:

"Anyone who either cannot lead the common life or is so self-sufficient as not to need to, and therefore does not partake of society, is either a beast or a god."

I recognise that I don't lead the common life in that I don't have a regular nine to five job and that, to a very significant degree, I've opted out of the momentum of mainstream consumer culture. But the trials of my life remain fundamentally the same as anyone else's, and I have empathy for others' experiences. I'm certainly self-sufficient, but that doesn't preclude me partaking in society: I still vote; I still engage with world events; I still donate. I do actually see people - admittedly perhaps not as often as others do. I do recognise that I enjoy some privilege in that I'm able to choose and control whom I see: by and large, I simply don't have to see or talk to anyone I don't want to. But that's just a rarity, isn't it - not a moral failing? It's certainly not enough for me to feel like I'm beast or god.

17/03/2018

This week's draw is the Ace of Staves from the Tyldwick Tarot (2013).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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ACE OF STAVES

Your mojo, your muse, your main line: all nicknames for the mysterious phenomenon more usually called inspiration that we can't generally explain. Drawing the Ace of Staves for this week's draw prompted me to consider more intensely the question which everyone who works in any artistic field struggles with continually, a question asked as often by oneself as by others of you: what is inspiration? Where does it come from? The marvellous and terrifying truth is, of course, that I don't actually know.

That ignorance is in itself marvellous because it makes the experience of creation magical: magic exists in those moments of peak intensity and virtual hypnosis where the world retreats into the background, the stream of consciousness races through, and the idea and the image just come. I hate the phrase, but anyone who creates knows how it feels to be 'in the zone' - where identity disappears and surrenders to whatever other energy is now directing us. Empneusmenos, afflatus - the ancients understood the sensation of possession by a spirit which feels as though it must be divine.

But what makes it marvellous also makes it terrifying: acknowledging that inspiration is something we don't understand, something that we can't control or command, also raises the constant fear of it fading or disappearing. I have painful first-hand experience of that loss: I left behind my previous twenty-year career because I recognised that my original gift for it, the inspiration that had made me so successful at it, had died and gone. Of course I could still do the job competently enough, but - entirely within myself, within my own spirit - imagination had been replaced by function, invention had been replaced by process. I'd done too much of it for too long. Seeing the Ace of Staves this week reminds me not to repeat the mistake.

08/03/2018

*** NEW DECK ***

After a difficult 2017, and after spending a long time working on a very serious deck (the Legend of the Wizard Laird Lenormand), I was in the mood for working on something much more simple and fun. Most of my decks to date have been heavily affected by card tradition and history, and I liked the challenge of creating a deck which ignored all that baggage and instead presented its images in as simple and direct a way as possible. I also wanted to create a deck which was much more colourful and spontaneous, and less laboriously thought out, than my more recent works. This new Lenormand deck is the result.

In some ways this deck represented for me a continuation of the experience of creating the Classic Crime Lenormand - that deck was a delight to make, and there are some obvious similarities between the Classic Crime deck and this one in terms of selection of font and regularity of layout. Also consistent with that deck is the slightly retro texture: whereas the Classic Crime deck was based on book covers, this one took inspiration from posters and labels (and perhaps even public signage) of the same period - the '60s and '70s.

As the deck progressed it began - by itself - to acquire something of a Japanese feel. Although this certainly hadn't been my original intention, this seemed to fit the overall atmosphere of the deck quite nicely - so in the spontaneous spirit which was the genesis for the deck I went along with the idea, wherever it seemed suitable. The simplicity of the images had themselves generated a direction I hadn't anticipated.

The deck is by far the simplest and most colourful I've designed. I also hope that it will be easy for readers to use, particularly for larger layouts. One occasional criticism of the more elaborate decks in my catalogue is that it sometimes takes users a while to familiarise themselves with the images - which admittedly can verge on the complex. With this deck, every card has been created with ease of reading in mind.

I am already in the process of getting this deck printed and have set up a new page for it on the Malpertuis site.

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/light-lenormand.html

08/03/2018

This week's draw is the Eight of Swords from the Tyldwick Tarot (2013).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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EIGHT OF SWORDS

I've not been able to trace the origin of the expression ‘we create our own prisons’, but it sprang immediately to mind when drawing the Eight of Swords this week.

Is there actually any worse feeling than that of being trapped? Not in the literal, physical sense, but in all those areas of life where we've come to feel that we're powerless to improve or change our lot. Trapped in a job that's making us miserable because we need the money or can't imagine giving up the taken for granted luxuries that it provides. Hating the area we live in, but remaining there because it's convenient for some things and moving would involve upheaval. Stuck in a relationship that's clearly toxic but better than nothing. Locked into a cycle of family grievances that repeat and refresh themselves with depressing predictability.

I think I've mentioned in more than one previous post that at the highest level I regard Tarot as an instruction manual about the importance of (a) making choices and (b) recognising their consequences, and the tail end of the Swords suit - Seven, Eight, Nine, Ten - always seems to me to be an illustration of the critical crescendo of depression which inevitably arises when we stubbornly refuse to do either. The Eight of Swords doesn't need to tell us that we feel trapped: we're quite capable of recognising that by ourselves. Rather it points out, in its sometimes brutal way, that if that's how we feel then it's only because we've *allowed* ourselves to be. How? By abdicating responsibility for making choices, concocting qualifiers to justify and legitimise our own indecision. But... sometimes he's really nice. But... it's very well connected. But... I should be getting a good bonus in a few months. In all these cases, hanging on is extending the problem, not providing a solution. This card says: stop making excuses, make your move.

28/02/2018

This week's draw is the Whip from the Silson Lenormand coloured edition (2015).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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WHIP

The Whip is generally considered to represent aggression, an uncomfortable subject for me. As I've written previously, at this stage of life I prefer to avoid confrontation, and hate how it affects me: being drawn into any argument or unpleasantness will usually be followed by days of brooding and over-analysis on my part, sometimes to the point of actual physical upset.

But avoiding aggression in London can be difficult: at its best it's a city which contains many joys, but at its worst often seethes with frustration and envy. Aggression is only ever moments from bursting forth, and of course sometimes it actually does - in disturbingly spontaneous fashion.

So what can this card tell me? I don't need it to point out that I'm over-sensitive to aggression - I know that already. But, as often with these draws, it does prompt me to recognise how my sensitivity itself plausibly derives from a cultural background - rural English - which almost invariably avoids nakedly aggressive behaviour if a passive aggressive alternative is at all available. Indeed, if I compare my own disinclination towards and emotional response to aggression with friends from other cultures the difference is immediately apparent. Whereas aggression or argument of any kind upsets me deeply, they seem to be able to take cosmic clashes in their stride as casually as breathing. They can appear ready to murder one another one minute, but in the next have forgotten that any argument has even happened - I'm not sure they even regard it as an argument.

Perhaps this is the message I should take from the draw. The aggression that causes me such discomfort (staring, shouting, swearing) is for some people just the regular currency of communication and conversation. I don't like it, but possibly I shouldn't rush to take it *so* personally.

19/02/2018

This week's draw is the Tree from the Retroracle.

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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TREE

Having always sworn that I'd never allow myself to be seduced by it, recently I've caught the genealogy bug and the infection has been serious. Everything people warned me about has come true: how the research process expands at a dizzyingly exponential rate; the irrational obsession with certain intriguing characters; the frustration of hitting dead ends and unpicking mistakes. Drawing the Tree has prompted me to reflect on what I've learned.

At a personal level, the experience has activated my atavistic instincts (always strong, but now more intense than ever). Although I left my home village nearly thirty years ago, the historical fact of my family's having lived in it for centuries has inevitably caused me to reflect upon how deeply my own identity is influenced by my background. Ancestors from five hundred years ago were baptised, married, and buried in the church which stands five minutes' walk from the house I grew up in. The power of roots is strong, wherever I may have ended up since.

But a more general lesson has been in how deceptive isolated facts can be, and how appreciation of their context is vital when hunting for truth. I've encountered only children whom I imagined to have led lonely early lives - until realising that they were surrounded by enormous extended families with scores of cousins. One of my ancestors disappeared off the records, leading me to suppose he'd absconded from his wife and young son - but he actually died as a volunteer in the Crimean War. I'd admired another as an adventurer and pioneer for emigrating to the New World, until I discovered that he'd been tried for larceny and that his departure was less a matter of choice than of necessity. Men dismissed at first as rotten emerge as decent, good eggs turn out to be bad: exploring what's happening *around* a person produces many reversals of initial assumptions.

13/02/2018

I don't normally use this page as a vehicle for venting, but will for once allow myself to combine it with an update on progress with the Legend of the Wizard Laird deck.

As I posted recently, the designs and booklet for this deck are now all complete and ready for printing and I'm keen to press ahead with production.

In mid January I sent requests for estimates to ten different printers - including the four best known card printers whose names will probably be familiar to deck designers and collectors.

Of those ten, eight didn't respond at all, even to acknowledge receipt of the brief. Two did initially reply… but over three weeks later still haven't supplied a cost or schedule. To say this is frustrating is an understatement. So unfortunately I'm having to go back to the drawing board, hopefully to identify alternatives: once I've found someone who actually wants the business I will (fingers crossed) provide a further update!

11/02/2018

This week's draw is the Mice from the Silson Lenormand (coloured edition).

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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MICE

It's funny how some conversations stay with you, long after the event. I remember, for example, how when I was a student over twenty years ago a physicist friend explained the idea of entropy to me. "You know how if you don't tidy up your room it just gets messier and messier... by itself?", he said. "That's kind of what entropy is. But applied to everything."

Having lived in an old house for a number of years now, I feel like I know exactly what he means. Cracks spontaneously appear in the walls and ceilings. Sashes that fitted fine yesterday decide today to let in draughts. Previously silent plumbing starts to tap and rattle of its own accord. Without any forewarning, things just seem to break or to stop working.

Of course, the truth is more usually that these things don't happen entirely by themselves. More often than not they actually happen because of inadequate maintenance or neglect. And it's in this situation that the Mice card generally rings its alarm bell. Where through laziness or a lack of attentiveness we're allowing things to get messy - letting them slide towards the entropy my friend explained to me all those years ago.

In a world which relentlessly promotes the disposable and the replaceable - "Claim your free upgrade!" - housekeeping can sometimes feel like an outmoded concept. But, as boring and old-fashioned an idea as it may be, it remains necessary, within both our practical and our emotional lives. Just keeping things in their right place, maintaining order, requires a certain amount of work. If we don't bother with the housekeeping, we can't complain when things start to decay or collapse. It's much as the Queen of Hearts says to Alice. "My dear, here we must run as fast as we can, just to stay in place. And if you wish to go anywhere you must run twice as fast as that."

05/02/2018

This week’s draw is the Deuce of Spades from the Malpertuis Poker K25.

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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DEUCE OF SPADES

Why are some friends so bloody-minded and so... contrary? As a give-my-opinion-only-if-I'm-asked-for-it and a let's-just-agree-to-disagree type of person, occasionally I find it hard knowing how to deal with people who insist on volunteering opinions on issues that I've consciously avoided, or who doggedly bring up topics where we've already established that we're just not going to agree. I'm sure everyone recognises the situation: must we really dredge this up yet again? For the sake of getting along, can't we stick to talking about something else? We both know that we feel differently on this, so can't you just leave it?

I've had one of these frustrating encounters in the past few days - an otherwise pleasant evening turned sour when a friend couldn't stop himself ruining it at the last minute - so it's not surprising that I drew the Deuce of Spades this week. Given the polarised politics that we all seem to be living through at the moment, it was inevitably going to appear at some point. But it has prompted me to consider the question: how best to cope with a friend whom I love dearly but who seems so determined to turn every conversation into a contest that I come away thinking I should just give him a wide berth?

I'm not sure whether it's the right answer, but perhaps the key really is just to be patient and - difficult as it may sometimes be - to celebrate difference instead of getting upset about it. It is, after all, unrealistic to expect everyone to share all of our views all of the time. Life would be pretty dull were that the case. The reflected symmetry of the card (one of the features I very much like about playing cards over Tarot and Lenormand is how they encourage one to flip questions and problems) also leads to me to wonder - is my deliberate evasion of contentious subjects actually just as maddening for my friend as his refusal to let them drop is for me?

28/01/2018

This week’s draw is the Tower from the Classic Crime Lenormand.

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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TOWER

The Tower card in the Lenormand deck is usually taken to signify authority and those who exercise its functions - the government, the police, the amorphous entity labelled as the 'establishment'. When I designed this card for the Classic Crime Lenormand I titled it "The powers that be", and I suppose that's what I generally take the card to represent.

So it's interesting that it turns up now, when many of us appear to be feeling conflicted and confused about authority - unsure whether we should defend or despise it, celebrate it or challenge it, obey it or defy it. So many apparent contradictions erupt daily to challenge and test our understanding of established political and moral structures that we're uncertain how we should understand authority and our relationship with it. Elected governments distort or disregard the wishes of those voters who granted them office; criminals flout the law and scorn its agents but then protest their right to justice; radicals agitate for the destruction of a culture whose own values they then invoke to protect their rights. So many confusions, so many shades of grey - all filtered, of course, through the chaotic kaleidoscope of social media. What are we supposed to think?

I'm no longer a practising Christian, but my upbringing was deeply Methodist (chapel four or five times a week, which sounds amazing now but wasn't at all back then). All these years later, I think the Wesleyan quadrilateral approach to truth must still be ingrained in there somewhere: scripture (i.e. the evidence), tradition (i.e. the wisdom of those who have gone before us), reason (i.e. what makes logical sense), and experience (i.e. our own witness). It strikes me that if we all applied those considerations to our thinking instead of concentrating just on the last one, we might - just perhaps - start finding a way to the answers. This card tempts me at least to try it.

26/01/2018

I am glad to confirm that the card designs for the Legend of the Wizard Laird Lenormand are now complete and I am in the process of gathering costs from printers as I explore different packaging options. I can confirm that the deck will be available in both larger (Tarot) and smaller (bridge) sizes. It may take some time to decide upon a printer as I have quite specific ambitions for how the deck should be packaged, but I will provide updates as soon as I have more concrete news. The final designs for the deck are now available to view on the Malpertuis website.

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/legend-of-the-wizard-laird.html

23/01/2018

My first draw of the week after a long absence.

You can read previous weekly draws at:

http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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FOUR OF STAVES

This is my first weekly draw for several months, indeed my first real return to working after an extended period off.

In May 2017, a few days after the last draw of the week that I posted, my father passed away after a brave fight against an illness that accelerated with sudden and ruthless speed. While at one level the many practical things that needed to be done interfered with my being able to work, far worse were the emotional effects that the loss had on my motivation. For over six months after Dad's death I found it completely impossible to create. It's only with the symbolic turning of the New Year, I think, that I've managed to recapture the will to start designing again.

For the first draw of this year to be the Four of Staves seems, therefore appropriate, prompting me as it does to consider what I've learned about my own creative processes - what I need to activate them, what they provide for me, and what conditions need to be in place for me to be able to operate.

I've realised that I'm not one of those gifted artists who can transcend suffering through their creations, or who can channel pain into their work. The world is all the richer for those who can (we would have far fewer great pop songs without them), but I've recognised that I'm definitely one of those who can't. I need to be happy - or at the very least contented and free from worries - to be able to create. I can only feel inspired, and then surrender to that inspiration and run with it, if there's nothing else in my mind interfering with the process.

It will still take me a while yet to achieve that sense of abandon again. At the moment I'm taking it in slow steps, but at least I'm feeling much more optimistic than I have for some time.

18/01/2018

Regular followers of this page will know that 2017 was not an easy year for me and its events made it impossible for me to create, but the arrival of the New Year has prompted me back into action. I will be updating the Malpertuis website in the next few days and should be posting more regularly there and here from now on. The many messages of support and condolence I received throughout a period of such difficulty were very much appreciated: I sincerely hope that going forward I can reward you all with a year of great endeavours.

02/10/2017

A number of people have been in touch recently expressing concern at the lack of updates. Unfortunately I've had an extremely difficult few months due to a family bereavement, but am hoping to get back on track with things - including this page - quite soon. Many thanks to everyone who has contacted me... I appreciate your interest.

02/05/2017

This week's random draw was the Eight of Diamonds from the Malpertuis Bridge J7 (2016).

Since I’ve recently resumed these draws, I have to confess that I’ve begun to feel like the cards are on a weekly mission to confront me with how old-fashioned (or maybe just how old!) I am. The Eight of Diamonds was no exception this week.

You can read previous weekly draws at:
http://www.malpertuis.co.uk/site/cards-of-the-week.html

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EIGHT OF DIAMONDS

The Eight of Diamonds is usually read as a sign of 'money in, money out'. Drawing the card this week prompted me to reflect on how completely out of sync I sometimes feel with the rest of society with regard to money, particularly in terms of my attitudes to credit.

Perhaps unsurprisingly for someone whose approach to finance is regularly mocked as Victorian (which, to be fair, it probably is), I'm forever amazed at how untroubled so many people are by the matter of debt. In my own circle, I have friends who'll happily treat themselves to things they can't really afford, or who've mortgaged themselves up to the hilt, or who'll take out a loan just to go on holiday - and who aren't, it seems, in the slightest bothered by a credit card balance that just gets larger and larger. It's such a contrast to my own experiences: buying my first car years ago 'on finance' and sweating until the day it was finally mine; never being able to relax properly in my home until the mortgage on it was paid off in full. I've always hated the idea of debt - *any* debt. Perhaps growing up in the country, and growing up with little, has stayed with me in terms of cutting my coat according to my cloth.

In a world where consumer credit always seems to be hovering on the cusp of catastrophe, it's obvious that my own approach is old-fashioned and somewhat alien. Even after twenty years of custom my bank still doesn't recognise that I don't want a loan - for anything. And at times it can actually feel like the whole motor of modern consumerism is determined to make me waste money. Live a little! Treat yourself! Go mad for once! You deserve it!

Maybe I should. The Eight does, after all, indicate money going out as well as money coming in. For most querents it's a warning against reckless spending: perhaps in my case the card's telling me to stop being Silas Marner.