What if the tool you need when you are creatively stuck is already waiting on your altar, desk, or bookshelf?
Artist block can arrive in many forms. Maybe you have an idea but cannot find its shape. Maybe a deadline is approaching and your energy is gone. Maybe you know that your practice is asking you to change—to work in a new medium, make something bigger, or trust a vision that feels a little too wild to name.
When that happens, tarot can offer a beautiful interruption.
Not because a deck has to tell you exactly what to do, but because it gives you something to respond to. An image. A story. A symbol. A question. A new emotional temperature. Tarot can help you loosen the grip of “I don’t know,” reconnect with your intuition, and make contact with possibilities you may not have been able to see alone.
In this episode of Your Art Is a Spell, I share three playful ways to use tarot for artist block, creative inspiration, and guidance in your artistic practice.
[Watch this episode on YouTube →]
[Listen to the podcast episode →]
Tarot is a creative technology
Tarot is often understood as a form of divination—a way to receive insight about the future, relationships, decisions, or unseen energies. But tarot is also an artwork and a storytelling technology.
A deck holds images, symbols, archetypes, colors, numbers, histories, intentions, and the visual language of its creators. When you pull a card, you are not only receiving a “meaning.” You are entering into a conversation with an image and allowing that encounter to shift how you see your work.
For artists, that can be profoundly useful.
A card can help you:
Name an artwork or project.
Discover the structure of a performance, essay, installation, or series.
Identify themes that want more attention.
Get unstuck when you do not know what to make next.
Find emotional or energetic support while completing difficult work.
Explore a transition, leap, or new direction in your creative practice.
You do not need to memorize every tarot meaning to begin. You can start by looking, noticing, feeling, imagining, and listening to what emerges.
1. Pull one card for creative direction
The first practice is for those moments when you have many ideas—or no ideas at all—and need a point of entry.
Before you pull a card, create a little opening. Make tea. Move your body. Light a candle. Take a few breaths. Pray, meditate, or simply sit with the question: What wants to be made through me right now?
Then pull one card.
Instead of rushing to a guidebook, begin with your own encounter. What do you notice in the image? What colors, gestures, landscapes, people, symbols, or emotions stand out? What story does the card seem to be offering? What quality might it invite into your work?
In the episode, I pull Mayumi Oda from the Missing Witches Deck of Oracles. The card’s word is nurture, opening questions about care, the inner world, dreams, courage, change, and what it might mean to tend an artwork like a sacred garden.
You might respond by journaling for ten minutes, making a quick sketch, writing a scene, improvising a movement score, or going directly into your studio practice.
The card is not a rule. It is an invitation.
2. Ask tarot to support you
Sometimes artist block is not about a lack of ideas. You may know exactly what needs to happen, but you feel tired, overwhelmed, discouraged, or disconnected from your own capacity.
For those times, ask a different question:
What support do I need to finish this work?
Pull a card, then let it become a companion. Place it on your desk, near your computer, in your studio, or on your altar. Return to it when you need to remember that you are not creating in isolation.
In the episode, I work with the Liberation Tarot and pull the Healer of Vessels, a reimagining of the Queen of Cups featuring adrienne maree brown. The image offers an especially potent reminder: the body is the vessel through which art moves.
This practice can be an opportunity to ask:
What does my body need today?
Do I need rest, food, play, music, pleasure, or a pause?
What would it mean to trust myself, even when I feel cracked open?
How can I create with more care instead of more force?
Creative work does not always need to be made through struggle. Sometimes the most powerful next step is to refill your own cup.
3. Use multiple cards to explore change
The final practice is for thresholds: a new medium, an ambitious project, a career pivot, a larger audience, a public artwork, or any moment when your creative life is becoming something different.
Pull two cards. Let one represent where you are now and the other illuminate the energy, challenge, or possibility of what comes next.
In the episode, I pull the Ace of Cups and Eight of Swords from the Travel Tarot, created by Cosmic Cousins in collaboration with Lonely Planet. Together, the cards create a living tension: the Ace of Cups offers renewal, emotional abundance, and a heartfelt beginning, while the Eight of Swords brings lightning, disruption, limitation, breakthrough, and radical new perspective.
When you lay cards beside each other, you do not need to search for a single correct interpretation. Notice the relationship between them.
You might ask:
What is shifting between these two images?
What is being offered, and what is being challenged?
What fears arise when I move toward this next phase?
What kind of power or clarity is becoming available?
What materials, elements, rituals, or collaborators appear in the visual story?
A tarot spread can become a map for an artwork—or simply a way to give yourself permission to move forward.
Make space to play
Tarot does not need to make your art practice more serious, more rigid, or more complicated. It can make it more playful.
Pull one card. Pull three. Let a card jump out. Work with a traditional tarot deck, an oracle deck, a deck made by artists you love, or a deck that has been sitting untouched in your collection. Read the guidebook, ignore the guidebook, or let the image speak before you look up anything at all.
The point is not to get the “right” answer. The point is to create a conversation that restores movement.
When your practice feels stuck, tarot can offer a question. When you feel depleted, it can offer a companion. When you are standing at the edge of change, it can help you notice the strange, beautiful, and sometimes stormy energy already gathering around your next step.
Your art does not have to come from suffering to be meaningful. It can come from play, intuition, care, pleasure, curiosity, ancestral connection, and the radical willingness to become something new.
Watch the full episode on YouTube or listen wherever you get your podcasts, and let me know: how do you use tarot in your creative practice?
Episode resources
Travel Tarot by Cosmic Cousins and Lonely Planet
Listen to the earlier Your Art Is a Spell conversation with Cosmic Cousins / Jeff Hinshaw
Join the free Your Art Is a Spell Patreon community.
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FAQ section
Can tarot help with artist block?
Tarot can help artists work through creative block by offering visual prompts, symbolic associations, fresh questions, and intuitive support. Rather than replacing your own creative judgment, it can help you see a project from a new angle and discover a more playful next step.
Do I need to know tarot meanings to use tarot for art?
No. Begin with what you notice in the image: color, mood, figure, setting, symbolism, memory, or feeling. A guidebook can add context, but your own response to the card is a meaningful part of the creative process.
What tarot spread is best for creative inspiration?
A one-card pull works well for quick creative direction or support. A two-card pull is useful for exploring a transition, contrasting energies, or a “where I am / what comes next” question.
Can I use oracle cards instead of tarot?
Yes. Oracle decks can be especially useful for artists because their imagery, themes, and language often offer immediate creative prompts. Use the deck that you feel drawn to and adapt the practice to your own intuition.