Everything in the news feels hard lately: natural disasters, worldwide violence, culture wars waged daily. That’s why I find these lovely prints to be both calming and wonderfully hopeful—an emotion that seems in short supply.
Created by Ali Cat Leeds of Entangled Roots Press, a printmaker in Portland, Oregon whose work has an excellently witchy social justice edge, the prints depict tasseography, the act of divining through tea leaves, coffee grounds, and wine sediments. The practice has been around in many cultures for centuries, and entered wider pop culture when Harry Potter saw the dark and foreboding figure of a dog in tea leaves during his Divination class.
Entangled Roots Press describes the inspiration and message behind their beautiful Tasseography prints:
Tasseography is the divination or art of telling fortunes by interpreting the symbols in tea leaves and coffee grounds. This piece is inspired by this art that has been handed down through the Armenian women of my family. The illustration shows the coffee plant growing out of the sleeves of the hands holding the cup with a top border of oriental poppies.
This is a 4 color (5 layer) screen print.
I foresee…
A world without borders.
The end of capitalism.
Decolonization and Self-Determination.
The return of the trees, salmon, wolves and bees.
The smashing of the patriarchy.
Justice for our communities.
Reproductive rights for all.
Queer liberation.
Leeds writes that her prints “mingle the literal and metaphorical to illuminate and comment upon the world around us,” and as you scroll through her evocative artwork (all available for purchase here), it’s hard not to feel how acutely and desperately these futures are needed. I would very much like to believe that they are promised.
(via Entangled Roots Press on Tumblr, images: Entangled Roots Press)
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