What would you say is your primary art medium?
My primary art medium is decks of cards. I've actually been referred to as a decksmith, which I kind of like, you know? You have your Goldsmith that takes the gold and tries to make something else out of it, I take playing cards and make them as three-dimensional as I can based on the artwork behind them.
What got you interested in cutting cards?
Well, first, I got interested in playing cards. It's kind of a tough one, I don't even know what was going on. I think when I was trying to get in through testing for firefighting and whatnot, I noticed that the dexterity of my fingers wasn’t exactly where I wanted it to be, especially with gloves on. I was trying to figure out some way to get that going without doing your standard up and down exercises kind of a thing. I ended up finding cards and magic and you have to pull them a certain way, and your hands have to be a certain way. I came across a video, it was actually Chris Ramsay, who's now got a TV show on, but back then he was just doing videos for fun. He did this thing called “cardistry” which is card flourishing and things like that. I noticed the deck of cards he was using was really nice looking. It was a theory11 Monarchs Blue. It was in the movie Now You See Me and I really liked it. I had no idea there was such a thing as premium playing cards. I looked into it, grabbed it. That was my first deck. I really love the tuck case, love the cards themselves, and then I found out there's this whole community of playing card collectors, magicians, cardists, and I kind of got into it that way. At some point, somebody was doing something similar to what I do. They were taking decks of cards, just the cards out completely. They were cutting, not random shapes, but they weren't following the art of the card and they were actually gluing the cards together on top and making a nice little thing that you can hang up on the wall. I thought it looked amazing. I contacted the artist and the price was not attainable for myself. So I just was like, “Well, I'm never gonna have that.” Over the course of the next nine months to a year, I got really involved in collecting cards. I have a lot of nice premium decks that I wanted to do something with so I decided to give it a try and cut one but I really wanted to focus on the art that the artists put into the decks. I don't use any glue. The tuck case itself is kind of like a shadow box that holds the cards. From the front side, it looks like a standard deck of cards, then when you flip it around you can see the three-dimensional aspect of it. So I just kind of tried it and I've been going ever since.
You talked about dexterity bringing you to this, what keeps you going?
Well, you know, it's funny as far as the dexterity goes, I never actually got into cardistry. I kind of did a little bit. You see those guys that do it and they say, “Oh, yeah, I practice when I'm watching TV and it can be six, seven hours a day” and I just don't have that kind of time. It's just something different than what I do for normal work. I’m a firefighter/EMT, I'm a group fitness instructor, so everything is really fast paced, high energy, or can be. This is really kind of a small focus, I mean, the cards themselves are so small, and then the artwork within it, it gives me time to just kind of breathe and focus in on trying to get clean line work. Sometimes I don't even know how I'm going to cut the deck, I just see something and go, “Oh, that'd be cool if I did that.” So I start from that and I just kind of layer it out and sometimes it surprises me. You have magicians who use the cards daily, you have cardists who always do those flourishes and you have collectors. Most collectors that I talk to, they buy decks of cards, and they keep them sealed in the cellophane and then they sit up on the desk. I never wanted to do that. I had a collection going, I still do, but 98% of all my cards are open. That’s because I want to see the artwork the artists put into it. The tuck case itself can have similar art on the front and back. Sometimes the back of the tuck case is the same as the card back design. What I wanted to do was have it so that if you were a collector and you had a favorite deck of cards, you could have it where you could actually see what the back design and everything looks like. I sometimes throw in court cards and flip something around front ways, but you can see the art of the cards within while still keeping all your other collections sealed up. So really me opening up the decks and seeing what I like and don't like is kind of what drives me to go further into what can be done with this deck besides just having it sitting somewhere collecting dust and wiping it off every once in a while.
What’s it like creating something that is in demand all over the world?
It wasn't anything that I ever thought about when I got into it. I really thought, “I'll make a few decks and send them to some people that might like them.” Then it just, kind of blew up from there. I mean, I’ve shipped to Singapore, Sweden, Germany, Canada, the US, all over the place. To me it’s crazy that I have, just in my little small sphere of the card industry, people contacting me and wanting a deck of cards. Taking someone’s favorite deck and being able to create something for them to ship out and then they get it and they love it, it makes me happy. You know that these people are getting to experience that too. But as far as being able to ship everywhere. It's just weird to me that I would have stuff shipped all over the place. It's beyond what I ever thought would have happened from the beginning.
What is the most expensive deck you’ve cut?
I think the most expensive deck I've cut, the cost of just the deck itself sealed and everything was probably about $100. It really depends on the demand that's going on. Right now I have a deck that I really, really want to cut. It was $100 when I bought it. One of those decks on eBay right now is going for $400. And I still want to sit here and cut it. The playing card industry is crazy. If you already have a deck, you can send it to me. If I have the deck in my collection and I'm fine getting rid of it, I'll just charge you whatever the deck actually cost when I bought it and then I'll cut it up and now you have something that nobody else has. Especially when you get up to those decks that are costing hundreds of dollars, who else is going to spend that kind of money on a one off piece that can showcase as part of your collection? I have one guy I did a project for, Kings Wild Project, who did a five deck set based on money. He ended up showing me pictures at the end and he's got a couple uncut sheets of playing cards up there, he's got two of every deck up there, and right in the middle, in this nice acrylic case, he's got these five decks I cut that match everything else which nobody else has. So that's kind of a little bragging right that he has.
Do you find there's any particular kind of clientele that is looking for these cards?
Not really, it's more people within the industry and within the community. More just people within the community who are looking for something to add to their collection. There's actually been a lot of decks started up on Kickstarter and other crowdsource platforms like that where the person who actually designed the cards contacts me and we'll do something together. So they actually have their design deck also cut up along with everything else and it's kind of like a personal pride piece that they have. But I get all sorts of people from heavy collectors, to magicians, to people that are just getting started into collecting and think that it's kind of cool and have a favorite deck. It's kind of all over the place. I even have some people that somehow come across my profile or who I know personally that had no interest in cards before that are like, “I'm gonna find a deck of cards for you to cut” either for themself or like their brother-in-law is having a birthday or something. So it's fun. I mean, it's not something you see every day,
Have you found anybody else doing this?
Yes. As I mentioned before, there was a person, Dan Levin, he is based out of Southern California. He's an artist, his signature means something. He was the one that I contacted and found the price was just too high for me. There wasn't really anybody else doing it at that time. I really tried to make a harsh separation and make it my own style. There are a couple that have taken inspiration from me and they'll cite intricuts in their posts, but they do it differently. It sounds dumb, you have a pack of playing cards and you're cutting it up. But they're taking that and pushing the envelope. One of the guys was doing a double cut, so he was cutting one side and the other side. Somebody else right now is taking a specific brand of cards and he's getting multiple colors of it and he's doing different square shapes in it so it kind of has this wave pattern in it and he's making it his own. So of the people that are doing them that are unique, there's probably a small handful of us.
How long does it take you to cut a deck?
You know, it's a little different from when I started to where I am now. If you go back and you look at my first couple posts versus my last couple posts, I feel like my style has evolved and gotten more intricate as I've gone along. But typically anywhere between three and a half to four and a half hours. Usually what people say is “Wow, that's a lot quicker than I thought it would be.” But yeah, I don't have a lot of time, I just cut them. Sometimes I'll start working on a single card and it'll take me an hour just to cut that one card. When you get 45 minutes into a card and then you go *boop*, “Ah, I didn't mean to do that.” your only option at that point is start completely over or make it work with the cut. Sometimes it happens. But yeah, I've spent an hour just cutting a single card. But I think I can get a deck done now, if I was quick about it, in three and a half hours.
Is there anything I haven't asked that you want to talk about?
There's little nuances within decks. I mentioned theory11 and their Monarch deck, I feel like they really work on the tuck case. So the box the cards go into is really nice and really worked on but the back seems to be fairly monochromatic. Then you go to somebody like Art of Play, or Kings Wild Project, where they really try to put the focus on the art of the cards. So sometimes it's an interesting balance. I'll get a deck and I'll have one idea of what I think it's going to look like and then I take the cards out and I go, “Well, I’ve got to figure something out. That's not at all what I thought it was going to be.” Or sometimes the tuck case, even on some of the more colorful ones, you take it out, and it doesn't match the back. So it's like a surprise. Sometimes people send me decks that I've never seen before and I'm looking at the tuck case going, “Wow, that's really plain, I don't know what I'm gonna do with that” and when I pull out the cards, I'm like, “Whoa, there's a lot to do with that!” Sometimes it's the exact opposite, it looks like there's gonna be a lot to do but I pull out the deck and I go “Well, Okay, time to sit and figure it out.” So it's interesting. I have cut the same deck multiple times for different customers but I try to make it so that each cut is different. So even though I have five of the holographic legal tenders from Kings Wild Project out there, each one of those cuts is completely different from the other ones. So it's not like just going through and having a laser cutter, I really try to make it so that each deck is its own individual thing.
Do you think art is a worthwhile endeavor?
You know, I've always been into art, I'm actually a musician and so I've always had that in there. I've always wanted to draw and paint, I've just never been that great at it. But art is really something that, there's just so much out there. You have tattoo artists, you have painters, you have sculptors, you have people that make giant things that are multi stories high and then you have me making a little deck of cards. There's so much to it and as much as everybody wants to express themselves and their individuality with tattoos and hairstyles and things like that, you walk into a house that is plain walled and it just seems empty. You start putting art up and it really starts bringing life into everything. I feel like the art world needs to be there because it helps bring life. Even when we're going through tough times, or when we're at the peak of our day, or week, or year. Those little moments we have that we can look at something and enjoy it, and just think, everything's gonna be okay. Then you have the people on the other side who are just creating things. With technology, everything is moving at such a fast pace but with art, people are starting with something small and then somebody else is seeing that idea and they're building on it and then pretty soon you have, it's hard to even put everything into its own little genre, there's almost a blur that goes across the people that are creating things and the people that love the creations they make. So it really is just about enjoyment; and I think without that we live in a pretty monochromatic world.
Do you think creating is something you'll ever stop doing?
No, I think there's always going to be something there that I'm either going to want to continue doing or to try. Whether it's going into woodworking or working with clay or trying to pick up paint. Different seasons for everything and I don't think there will ever be a time where I just won't have anything creative going on in my life. There's something that I'm always going to do, however small, or however big a project. Even if it's just building shelves somewhere to go in my house, there's still that process of making something. It's not all gonna be fine art, but no, there will not be a time where I'll just stop and be done with it.