Featured Artist: Alexandra Eldridge
Jennifer Esperanza
S&H editor Ben Nussbaum spoke with Santa Fe-based artist Alexandra Eldridge about intuition, illustrating the tarot deck, and the importance of trusting yourself.
S&H: You’ve said that when you start a project, you don’t have a plan. It comes to you as you go. What guides you? What do you call it? Do you call it intuition?
Alexandra: Definitely. Intuition, or reaching the unconscious, which I spend a lot of time cultivating by reading poetry or looking at art or other deep soul experiences; I’m kind of cultivating this all the time. It’s almost a prayer to the imaginal realms to come forth. I’ve been at this for so many years, since I was a young girl. I’ve really been working in these realms. It’s just a constant conversation with the other realms. Blake said this wonderful thing, “Art is conversing with eternity.” When I came upon that in my 20s, it was like “Oh my heavens, someone is finally putting words to what I’ve felt for many years.”
I look for inspiration, there’s no doubt about it. It’s not like I just sit here and have it come in. I definitely seek it out. I’m a seeker, period. Whether it comes through literature, films, nature, I’m on the lookout all the time.
You’re illustrating tarot cards at the moment, right?
I have to finish 30 more of them. There are 78 in the deck, so I have many more to do. This is an interesting process for me. I’m doing a lot of research, which I feel I need to. I have many books and look at many decks, from the ancient times to now. Then I just close it all down. I let it come through my own symbology. And it always does, which is kind of wonderful. With this particular project I feel like I need a grounding, which is quite different than my other work, which just comes—it’s a great world of uncertainty which I just dig into, and there it comes.
I let it come through my own symbology. And it always does, which is kind of wonderful.
Do you ever second-guess yourself? When you’re listening to inspiration or the unconscious, how do you trust yourself?
Trust is probably one of the most important words in my psyche. I’m so fortunate to have this trust; the trust comes from years and years of doing what I do.
Do you ever second-guess yourself? When you’re listening to inspiration or the unconscious, how do you trust yourself?
Trust is probably one of the most important words in my psyche. I’m so fortunate to have this trust; the trust comes from years and years of doing what I do.
I had a dream this one time that there was a gigantic stone that was sitting on a chair, and it was falling off. But on the top of it was sitting a mother bird with a nest with her baby in it. There was complete peace of mind in that mother bird. That to me was trust. And then there was trust in me that this dream was showing me something that I had to paint.
Trust is huge. And I do trust myself more and more as the years go on, which is such a wonderful thing. Whenever I’m about to do an interview or something, I look back and I think, “How wonderful that I did trust all along the way.”
And I’m lucky. So much comes from having two parents who were artists. They created many children’s books. My mother wrote them and my father illustrated them. Just watching them have a life of art and trusting that they could put seven kids through college was a pretty astounding thing. I was born into a lot of trust.
That’s so interesting.
I’m so lucky. I’m so lucky. I hear other people’s stories, and I’m just a lucky human being.
Where do you see your work evolving, if you had to guess five years into the future?
I’m really into books these days. Finally having this book published with the tarot—it will be a book and a deck, using the tarot cards as a creative prompt. I’m working on two other books. Really, I would like to do this. I would like to do this very much in the future.
