We recently connected with Lennox Rees and have shared our conversation below.

Hi Lennox, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear the backstory behind a risk you’ve taken – whether big or small, walk us through what it was like and how it ultimately turned out.

Much like The Fool card in a tarot deck, taking a risk requires both courageous trust and wild curiosity. When I decided to create my first deck, Coastal Curiosities Oracle, it was not only a risk to create something I had never created before but also to make art in a way I had sworn to myself I would never do.

I went to college for graphic design, so as a collage artist in my “personal time,” I drew an imaginary line with digital versus analog work. My art, my analog collages, were never to be created digitally. Digital was for design work. Digital was for client projects, not my personal art. Art is analog. This was my (limiting) line of thinking for over ten years.

When my pit bull, Sasha, passed away in 2020, I desperately needed a creative outlet. I had moved my whole existence to the living room of our house to care for her, and I couldn’t pull myself away from there after she passed. The grief was immense. The heaviness was unreal, but I needed a distraction and somewhere to channel my emotions. My computer was on the coffee table next to my mattress on the floor. Nowhere to go. Nothing to do. That’s when I started playing around in Photoshop, creating nature vignettes in a style similar to what I craft for my analog collage art.

The more I tinkered escaping into these miniature worlds, the more I wanted to create an oracle deck out of them. I never made anything like that before. I had only been studying and reading tarot and oracle cards for about a year at that point, so I felt like I was still too new to put something like that out there. I focused on making it just for me. But the further I progressed, my husband began encouraging me to make this a real thing and to really go for it!

And that’s what I did. I poured my grief, guilt, and sadness into each digital collage, and bit by bit the oracle deck became complete. This was art. But different. It was design. It was illustration. It was collage. It was a release. My emotions poured into this soul-crafted oracle deck. The amazing thing is I launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the production, and it was successful! I went from never having produced a deck of cards before let alone overcoming a personal blockage on top of it. I left it all out there to be judged, enjoyed, and put to use in the world.

This risk of creating digital collages as “art” and the risk of creating something I had never done before was the turning point in my career. It gave me the freedom to utilize my experience as a professional designer and creative director to elevate a product artistically, as a collage artist. I was able to craft a world thanks to my unique set of skills and perspectives. I was able to break a limiting line of thinking and work digitally for myself and my art. I was able to honor Sasha through something I’m deeply passionate about. Maybe this risk was an evolution.

Now, all thanks to Sasha, I’m the creator of multiple tarot and oracle decks, and there’s no stopping me with others as works in progress. Had I not taken this risk on myself, I’m not sure where I’d be. Possibly working in a design field that’s draining and all-consuming as an artist in those environments. Thankfully, my risk worked out.

Lennox, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

I’ve always been creatively inclined whether I knew it or not. As a kid in the late 90s with access to dial-up internet and a Gateway desktop computer, I coded and designed a website (with weekly design layout changes) on my own domain (that was a big deal back then) along with some internet friends I made along the way. As I entered my later teenage years and early adulthood, I lost touch with that part of myself. I found myself drawn to unproductive activities and people.

When I rediscovered my creative side, I was in college studying graphic design. I met my now-husband, who is a sculptor and fabricator, and started creating analog collages outside of school work. My graphic design projects started taking shape in a distinct collage style—mashing vintage and modern elements with bold colors that found themselves in my collage pieces as well.

Once I graduated college, I worked in various advertising agencies and in-house marketing teams for big brands as a graphic designer. I eventually worked my way through a variety of jobs and titles, and currently am a senior graphic designer and creative director.

I’ve always inserted my artistic perspective in my professional work because that’s a part of who I am, whether I get to execute that visually or stylistically or not, I’m still thinking as an artist. But I never pushed my artistic creations as a side gig, it was always kept as a personal experience and emotional release to showcase in art shows or just for me.

When I stumbled upon the world of tarot and oracle decks, so many things unlocked for me. Here’s this object that incorporates all my strengths and passions: art, design, conceptual thinking, organization, layout, themes, print, and of course, helping others. That was something that didn’t fully click about my creations’ power and the power of art in this format. My art doesn’t only help me, but it helps others. That’s something one collage hanging on a white wall can’t do—at least on my scale of notability.

This chance I took on myself to develop, design, and produce tarot and oracle decks has empowered me as a self-employed artist. I’ve been able to shift from professional agency work to personal art. All thanks to the support and encouragement of my husband. Because without him pushing me to do the things I’m capable of and talented enough to do, I wouldn’t be here. But I also wouldn’t be here doing this without the outpouring of love, excitement, and support from my little slice of the tarot community. Never have I seen such a supportive group of individuals just as excited about art and tarot as I am.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

My creative journey is driven by my desire and passion to create, to learn, and to connect with others through my artwork. I love what I do and my work is my creative outlet. I pour myself into each project, learning something from each to continue improving upon the next. I want to leave behind my creations after I depart from the physical realm. There’s something so special when someone searches for an out-of-print tarot or oracle deck to bring into their collection, hands, and home. And to think that could be my work someday, well, that’s pretty incredible to me and the ultimate compliment to my work. Being timeless.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

You need to be inspired by everything! That doesn’t mean throwing everything under the kitchen sink in what you’re creating. That means finding something exciting, uplifting, or cool in your day-to-day. Did a building have a particularly interesting shade of blue-green? That color might make for a good starting point in a project. What about the way the lighting is casting shadows across the pavement? The lettering on a restaurant’s sign? The fluffy fur of a dog walking by? An amazing outfit? It goes on and on. Look for it. Apply it. Be inspired by it.

Stay curious! Don’t limit your interests. Explore what you find intriguing regardless if it is in your industry or not. If you’re a painter, you can’t just look at other artist’s paintings constantly. You form better, cooler, more unique ideas when you’re doing stuff outside of your job, art, or whatever. Be a nerd. Do research. Start a journal. Play a game. Join a club. Go down a rabbit hole and try a new hobby. There’s so much to do in our short life. Explore it! It helps what you create.

Resources, books, and online materials are helpful and can direct you. But what is most important is having an open heart and an open mind for learning. Understand what works and doesn’t work for you. Develop your boundaries. And most importantly, listen and learn from what you don’t agree with or what you dislike. You don’t have to keep it but listen to it. This arms you with nuanced knowledge and on a path to more critical thinking across your work. Do you what you think is the best, the coolest, the most inspiring. Ignore the rest.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.helloivyly.com/
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/helloivyly/
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lennoxrees/
• Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@lennoxrees
• Other: Portfolio: https://www.lennoxrees.com/