Work samples
-
"Shadow Self"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
The Shadow Self is an unconscious aspect of your personality made up of the parts of yourself that you have deemed unacceptable. Unconditional self-love will give you the willingness to examine rejected parts of yourself and gain new insights. Shine light on the dark corners of your subconscious and flush out your inner demons. Confronting them will help you find hidden strengths.Image © 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
Text by Cheryl Fair, © 2024 Cheryl Fair -
"Orobourous"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
The cosmic serpent eats its tail, continually consuming itself and giving birth to itself. Metaphorical death and rebirth. Energy cannot be destroyed, only transformed. Infinity, immortality and protection. This is the end of one cycle and the beginning of the next.
Be willing to let go of what no longer serves you, without knowledge of what will replace it. The divine breath of life is yours.Image © 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
Text by Cheryl Fair, © 2024 Cheryl Fair -
"The Magician"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
Prepare to be dazzled! This virtuoso of improvisation skillfully juggles the very fabric of reality. You might be tricked, or you might be enlightened.The Magician is at work surrounded by the trappings of her craft. She raises a wand and looks over her shoulder to focus on a candle flame. Every surface around her is cluttered with objects both occult and mundane. There are books, globes, skulls, a clock, cards and coins, sheet music, toadstools, a pistol, strings of pearls, a shy squid, a small black bird, a phrenology chart, and a cecropia moth entranced by the flame. The pièce de resistance is a stuffed armadillo that dangles from the ceiling.
© 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
-
"The Fool"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
The Fool blithely embarks upon a new adventure, with good luck as her companion and the world unfolding at her feet.
This lively lass with the head of an ass is poised at the brink of a cliff. Despite the fearful precipice, she dances joyously, wildly, seemingly oblivious to her peril. Her little dog prances beside her, and a fat bumblebee buzzes across her path. The sky is blue above golden fields far below.
© 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
About Paula
I am a lifelong artist and a professional graphic and museum exhibit designer. I work in digital collage using public domain sources and my own photos to create fantastical recombinant imagery. My inspiration comes from fine art, natural history art and artifacts, and vintage commercial art and illustration. Much of my work encompasses Tarot and oracle deck creation, as well as print and textile designs. It’s my hope that my work conveys wonder, wit, and weirdness.
Cassandra's Oracle of Worldly Wisdom
2024-2025 Work in Progress
Baltimore artist/writer/film maker Cheryl Fair and I are currently collaborating on an oracle deck. The individual cards reflect our accumulated life lessons and experiences. The process is that she and I decide together on what cards to create; then I come up with a collage illustration and Cheryl writes the accompanying text. We have chosen to dedicate the project to Cassandra the Trojan priestess because we both have a keen sense of irony.
Images by Paula Millet © 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
Text by Cheryl Fair, © 2024 Cheryl Fair
-
"The Weaver"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
The spider queen plucks her web and listens for vital information. How will you use that information? Are you planning or scheming? Transparency and motivation are key. A plan is an outline laying out the realization of achievement. Even the most excellent plans require skill and patience to come to fruition.
-
"Smartitude"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
Both scholarly intelligence and “horse sense”, or practical intelligence, are available to us. Scholarly knowledge is a world of theories and ideas. Scholars are often well rewarded with acknowledgment and admiration. Common sense comes from real world experience and is universally accepted. Combining practical know-how with theory and reasoning gives the ability to achieve success and make progress.
You understand how or why something works, and also have the ability to do the task at hand effectively. -
"The Green Robe"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
The vision of a beautiful woman wearing raiment of the softest moss brings you comfort, healing and magic. Moss is unique and astoundingly resilient, thriving in the most extreme conditions. Immersion in water can bring a dormant clump of moss back to life after decades. Touch the ground and rest your weary head. Let the soft magic of Mother Earth restore your body and your spirit.
-
"Foundation"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
The mushroom is the fleshy, fruiting body of a fungus. Tiny threads of mycelium are interwoven with the soil and tree roots to create a vast support system for the mushroom. Even the most unique structure will be viable if you have built it on a solid foundation.
-
"Spirits and Ghosts"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
Ghosts are earthbound energy leaving an impression that is sometimes seen or felt by humans and animals. Spirits have freedom from time and space. For many, cats are psychopomps, crossing between the temporal world and the spirit world. Has something unexplainable caught your attention? Are your ancestors calling to you? They are ever present and everlasting. Listen.
-
"Bad Brains"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
Sometimes you are overwhelmed with inner voices that distract you from knowing what is best for you. Intrusive thoughts, anxiety and paranoia can keep you stuck in a state of mind that temporarily incapacitates you. Mindfulness and grounding can help you let go of unwanted influences and protect you from your own confusion. Concentrate on your own breathing and be aware of your internal state. Observe and dismiss unwanted influences and thoughts without judgement. Ground yourself and concentrate on the present moment.
-
"A Reprieve"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
After a period of emotional heavy liftin there is an abrupt feeling of relief. Keeping an orderly life brings more responsibilities than you had in mind, but you rise to the occasion. Completing what needs to be done banishes the anxiety that hangs over you. You know that other burdens may arrive in the future, but you feel an energy shift and a sense of freedom. The suddenness of this reprieve may surprise you.
-
"Jealousy"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
Envy may happen between two people, but it takes three to create an interpersonal triangle of jealousy. Being involved in any part of a jealousy triangle can be overwhelming and destructive. It is best to dismantle the dynamic for the sake of everyone involved. You can only control yourself, and it is up to you to create the needed changes.Take time to observe and acknowledge your feelings without judgment. Practice gratitude, acknowledging and appreciating the good things in your life. Move in a constructive direction, expanding your capacity for love and compassion. Let go of fear.
-
"Inspiration"
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
What makes your heart sing? An ideal inspires you to action. Inspiration can bring about grand gestures, brilliant inventions and wondrous works of art. Stay flexible and do your best, so that you will be satisfied with what you are able to make of it.
-
"Time Flies
Oracle Card, Digital Collage Art
Every moment passes as flowers grow and drop seeds, which then become flowers that grow seeds, in a seemingly endless loop. Time goes on, but our existence on earth does not. Our time to enjoy this life can end at any moment. Waiting and deferring dreams can mean never experiencing our heart’s desire. Opportunities are there when they are there, not necessarily when we would like them to be. Do it now. Get it while you can.
Boadicea's Tarot of Earthly Delights
From 2013 through 2022 I worked on creating an 80 card Tarot deck in the Rider Waite Smith tradition. I chose to illustrate the cards using Photoshop to assemble intricate digital collages using selections from public domain images. (Image sources and other info can be found here: https://paula-millet.squarespace.com). Once completed my deck was published as an app by The Fool’s Dog, https://www.foolsdog.com/Boadicea/.
Following the app publication I began collaborating with Caroline Kenner, a Tarot expert, author, and one of the Fool’s Dog owners, to realize our mutual goal of publishing a printed version of the deck with a comprehensive guidebook. We self-published the deck and book in 2024.
All images © 2024 Boadicea Design, LLC
-
"The Ace of Combustion"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
First, there is the spark of an idea. Once ignited, this spark cannot be ignored. This image speaks of elemental light and the raw power of creativity, in whatever dazzling form creativity takes once it manifests.
From a portal in the great dark emptiness of space, a human hand emerges from a gilded picture frame. Within the frame, the upper background is obscured by clouds, while the lower background shows
a double rainbow. The middle finger blazes with a bright flame as the hand reaches past the gilded frame towards the stars beyond.
-
"The King of Aether"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
The King of Æther is a sharp witted and perceptive ruler. He is quick to analyze a situation and swift to pass judgment.
This King is a combination of human and animal forms. He has the head of a magpie, with a bird’s keen eyesight and sharp beak. His body is that of a well-built man. He wears an intricately fashioned crown, a regal ermine cape, and a sky blue tunic richly decorated with golden thread. His right hand rests on an open book; his left firmly clasps a royal scepter that is crowned by a bejeweled housefly. Two funnel clouds are forming in the sky above his head. Although he is clearly looking forward, he is still well aware of the storm that is brewing behind his back.
-
"The Star"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
This card speaks of hope, divine guidance, and serendipity. You are a glorious, shining beacon; you are flowing with The Waters of Life.
Flaming stars falling from the heavens shower a beautiful naked woman as she reclines at the edge of a waterfall. Adorned with a starfish in her navel, the woman stretches, confident and free in her luxuriant beauty. She relaxes against two amphorae gushing water both above and below the brink of the waterfall. A little brown snake lies coiled under exotic plants growing beside the falls. -
"The Page of Fungi"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
The lovely Page of Fungi heralds the start of a new financial enterprise. She brings you the riches of the Earth.
A young lady wearing a fabulous fungi hat sits surrounded by cascading bouquets of flowers and fruit. Her arm is draped over a large plump mushroom, and she holds a ripe apple. Crimson slugs crawl across her hat, and a friendly hedgehog perches on her lap.
-
"The Two of Tentacles"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
This semi-cephalopodic pair speaks about love, sexual attraction between two people, a deepening emotional relationship, or sometimes, an unexpectedly passionate entanglement. Their roles are not foreordained by gender–anyone can play either role in this delightful dance.
In the undersea realm a male and female individual clasp hands. Their human torsos merge into tentacled lower limbs. His squid and her octopus arms entwine suggestively. She engages the viewer with a coquettish smile. His interest is definitely piqued.
-
“Nine of Combustion”
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
This image represents perseverance, self-discipline, and courage. Hard work and a will of iron allow you to overcome enormous obstacles.
A man bearing a stoic expression sits cross-legged on a floating carpet. The ground beneath him is peppered with impact craters. The man is wrapped in an voluminous orange robe, with his slippers and a large bowl of tangerines on the rug beside him. He appears unperturbed by the volcano erupting in the background. Sulfurous clouds, rivers of lava, and nine fireballs shoot from the caldera. Disaster threatens everything below the volcano. He understands the danger and accepts his peril. -
"Eight of Aether"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
This image asks–Is it all in your head?
Eight assorted bats careen around the head of a distraught young lady. She has conjured up a bird cage to protect her head. Is the cage keeping the bats out, or containing—and thus constraining—her?
From the neck down she possesses the body of a gray parrot with a bright red tail. Dainty human hands sprout from her wing joints. They clutch at her feathered chest in dismay. A dark, forbidding mountain rises behind her. The sea lashes at its base. The sky is lit by a strange, yet spectacular, Aurora Borealis. -
"The World"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
Congratulations! Sometimes we *can* have it all. You have manifested your heart’s desire and accomplished your goals! For a few beautiful if fleeting moments, you are dancing on top of The World.
An imperious chimera dances beneath an illuminated vault. Both a beguiling human and an otherworldly octopod, she shakes a tambourine of Planet Earth above her head. With her proud gaze and her curling tentacles, she is entirely self-possessed, both wise and innocent. Behind her, angels uphold portals to the celestial realms. Creatures representing each of the four elements surround her. The World expresses Spirit, the fifth element that joins all existence. -
"The Empress"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
The Empress embodies the fertile and nurturing powers of Mother Nature. She is Divine Nature herself.
Crowned with ginger fritillaria flowers, this imperial lady holds herself proudly, with a direct gaze and a regal bearing. She rests on a marble bench by an open window before a vista of her castle and great estate. The Empress wears a lavish gown of gold and silver brocade, with a collar of Madonna lilies, and a skirt draped with pitcher plants buzzing with colorful bees and flies. A jewel-like hummingbird perches upon her outstretched hand.
-
"Hierophant"
Tarot Card, Digital Collage Art
The Hierophant is an ancient spirit of Divine Nature, an ambassador of Nature’s Soul. He is a spiritual guide who leads us towards harmony with the soul of Planet Earth.
It is twilight in the forest. The Hierophant approaches. He has a man’s body with the head of a mighty stag, wearing white robes and offering a sacred libation. An ethereal ball of light hovers at his crown.