Cory Gabel · Field Notes on the Making
How the work gets summoned—and how it gets finished. A working composer’s notes on muses, rituals, taste, and the discipline to ship.
The receptive pole
Muses, archetypes, totems, ritual. The constructs that make the work worth making.
1 entryThe taste in the gaps
The craft decisions no one can name but everyone feels. Why this, not the obvious thing.
1 entryThe analytical pole
Stop channelling. Kill the darlings. Finish the thing. The blunt half of the work.
1 entryBetween the Notes
Most tarot art is trying very hard to look mysterious. Mine refused to even try. When I started the cards, the default was right there: ornate borders, jewel tones, robed figures gazing into the middle distance — the velvet-and-rhinestone, incense-and-candlelight look. It’s…
Read the plate →Ship It Already
You finished it. The thing is done. And now you’re going to ruin it by being precious about how it leaves the house. I know, because I did exactly this. Tarot Ballet was twenty-two cards. Twenty-two scores. Each one married to an…
Read the plate →Creative Arcana
A confession: I had an archive and I couldn’t make myself touch it. Years of pieces. Enough for a record. And the obvious move — Cory’s collected works for modern dance, a tidy retrospective — made me want to quit before I…
Read the plate →New plates as they’re struck, the work behind them, and the occasional summoning. No noise.