Celebrate the Magic of Pride with Ash + Chess
RP Mystic is celebrating Pride Month with a magical Q&A with Ash + Chess, creators of Queer Tarot: An Inclusive Deck and Guidebook and My Queer Year: A Guided Journal. Read on to learn more about what Pride means to Ash + Chess, how they manifest that Pride in their tarot deck, and how Pride influenced the creation of their guided journal.
Plus: Celebrate Pride all year with the newest offerings from Ash + Chess! The adorable board book for kids ABC-Deconstructing Gender, featuring a bright and bold poster on the other side of the book’s jacket, is on sale now wherever books are sold. The forthcoming The Big Book of Queer Stickers, featuring over 1,000 stickers from flags to rainbows to slogans and more, is on sale in October 2023 and available for pre-order now.
Ash + Chess, thank you so much for taking the time to chat with us during Pride Month! This is such a magical event for the LGBTQIA+ community, and everyone experiences and shares that Pride in so many different ways. What does Pride mean to you?
Pride to us is celebrating the community around you and the part you play in it. It’s about taking care of each other and fighting for equity and equality for all LGBTQIA+ people. We are starting to see so much visibility and acceptance, but with both of those comes backlash from the people who don’t want to see us thrive, and that has taken the form of policing trans bodies and bodies with uteruses, rolling back protections and rights for LGBTQIA+ people, and outward hate and bullying towards the community. While Pride has always been about celebrating how far we’ve come, the most important thing to remember is that we are STILL on that journey and we are still under attack.
How can modern mystics use Queer Tarot to manifest the values you most love about Pride?
When we were making this deck, the two biggest things we had in mind for what this deck could help cultivate in readers is a deeper understanding of your queer sense of self as well as the importance and the connection you have to your community. While solitude is good for some things, the community will always have your back.
Queer Tarot is certainly bursting with Pride – from the art to the models to the guidebook. What kinds of discoveries did you make about yourselves and the community while creating the deck?
While casting for the Queer Tarot, we saw so many submissions come in. We had to narrow down from over 500 applicants to about 100 and it was so hard. While doing this though, we discovered how cute and special and connected queer people are. People shared their stories, backgrounds, and favorite tarot cards with us. Being able to hear everyone’s bits and pieces of their lives made us realize that it really is true – community is the most important thing! We realized that by creating this deck, we were creating a way for queers to become even more connected to each other and to recognize that and cherish it.
We love the bright, bold design of My Queer Year! How has your Pride influenced the creation of this unique journal?
Like all of the projects we do, everything we make is inspired by what we would’ve liked to see on shop shelves growing up. I (Ash) was a big fan of guided journals growing up, so getting to a point in our creative careers where we could create our own version that is more focused around your queer identity is so exciting! We hope that this little journal will shine some light and help in guiding people to experiment with their identity and discover their true selves.
Explore the Ash + Chess Collection
- AN INCLUSIVE, AFFIRMING DECK: Queer Tarot is a bright, bold interpretation of the tarot that offers inspiration, affirmation, and LGBTQ+ representation. Created by queer and trans artists Ashley Molesso and Chess Needham of Ash + Chess, this reimagining of the classic figures in the Major and Minor Arcana showcases a wide range of gender expressions and sexual orientations, and incorporates queer history and iconography throughout.
- DELUXE SET: This set includes 78 full-color illustrated tarot cards (3 X 5 inches), shrink wrapped in an interior travel case; a 168-page, full-color illustrated flexibind book (4 3/4 X 6 inches); and a keepsake magnetic closure box with metallic foil accents. Cards and travel case are embedded in an interior flocked tray.
- FULLY ILLUSTRATED TAROT GUIDEBOOK: The flexibind guidebook provides an illustrated introduction to the tarot, with LGBTQ+ descriptions and suggested interpretations for each card, as well as instructions for sample readings and a brief history of tarot.
- VIBRANT FULL-COLOR ART FROM ASH + CHESS: Queer Tarot features Ash + Chess's signature colorful, risograph-style illustrations, including retro color palettes and bold, detailed figures.
- ALL CARDS BASED ON REAL, DIVERSE MODELS: Each card in Queer Tarot is based on real LGBTQ+ folx commissioned for this project by Ash + Chess. The deck celebrates a full range of races, ethnicities, gender identities, sexual orientations, sizes, and abilities.
- A PERFECT GIFT: This joyful, inclusive, and beautiful tarot deck set is an ideal gift for tarot novices, seasoned readers, queer folx of all ages, and their allies.
- A GUIDED JOURNAL TO CELEBRATE AND EXPLORE LGBTQ+ IDENTITY: With dozens of guided prompts — organized into four-week themes like "Community," "History," and "Identity" — fun sidebars about LGBTQ+ events and icons throughout history, calendar-style planning pages, and plenty of space for free writing, this hybrid guided journal-planner is a thoughtful, engaging tool for self-exploration.
- START ANY TIME: This journal-planner is divided into 12 undated months, and can be started at any time of year.
- DELUXE PACKAGING: My Queer Year is packed with deluxe touches, like holographic foil, neon-bright illustrations, tabbed planning sections, and an engaging, easy-to-navigate design.
- BONUS STICKERS: Each copy comes with 3 sheets of bonus stickers!
- VIBRANT FULL-COLOR ART FROM ASH + CHESS: My Queer Year features Ash + Chess's signature colorful, risograph-style illustrations, including retro color palettes and bold, vibrant iconography, including flags, hearts, rainbows, stars, and more.
- A PERFECT GIFT: This joyful, inclusive, and beautiful guided journal-planner is an ideal gift or self-purchase for LGBTQ+ folx of all ages.
Be affectionate, beautiful, courageous, and more in this gender-bending ABC book.
Daryl is so affectionate. Alex is gentle with the family cat. Sage and Kaylin are super strong. And Ira yearns to do ballet like their older brother. Demystify gender stereotypes while learning your ABCs in this bright, celebratory debut picture book by stationery company Ash + Chess, who bring not only their quirky artistic flavor but also their personal perspectives as a queer couple to this empowering book for younger kids. This hardcover picture book is rendered in bright, bold colors and patterns and uses neon pink hues throughout. As a bonus, remove the book's jacket to reveal a cool ABC poster on the opposite side that can be displayed at home, in schools, at libraries, or anywhere!
From flags and rainbows to queer slogans (Gay All Day, Queer All Year) and declarations (Protect Trans Kids), you'll find hundreds of ways to joyfully share LGBTQIA+ pride in The Big Book of Queer Stickers.
- Deluxe hardcover book with 1,000+ stickers. Inside this brightly colored book—complete with holographic foil on the cover—you'll find more than 1,000 stickers in all shapes and sizes.
- 2 bonus sheets of holographic stickers. 2 full sheets (40 stickers) are printed on holographic foil, adding a special, sparkly flair to your stickers.
- Includes blank pages for doodling and stickering. At the back of your sticker book, find blank pages for journaling, doodling, or placing your stickers into custom arrangements.
- Created by queer and trans stationery brand Ash + Chess. Ash + Chess are the queer and trans founders of the eponymous stationery line, and they've channeled all of their LGBTQIA+ pride into this collection of hundreds of celebratory stickers!
