The Queen of Diamonds
This card is the creation of a mother and daughter team and embraces the depth of that bond; the union of two artists, the strength of two women.

The Design, the daughter:
Using ideas of transformation, metamorphosis, and the dual purpose of one object having two uses, I created the Queen of Diamonds with one face that could be viewed from either direction.

Although the history of playing cards can be traced back to the 13th century, the inspiration for my design stems from an idea introduced much later in history. In the 17th century, “reversible” court cards placed the suit symbol face-up in opposing corners so players would not be tempted to rotate their cards, which often gave a hint of what their hand contained. However the face cards still contained one sole figure (king, queen, or jack) standing in the middle of the card. In the 19th century “transformation” cards were created which allowed the image of the court figure to mirror itself. Our Queen of Diamonds is a “transformation” card, and the diamond shape - a rhombus, an equilateral parallelogram, a shape that mirrors itself - is a natural “transformation” shape, unique amongst the suits.

The beauty of this design becomes apparent when the card is dealt; our image is an abstract face where the eye becomes the lips, the crown becomes the necklace, and the Queen smiles at you no matter how she is dealt.

The Creation, the mother:
Transforming a piece of Tanya’s art into fiber is always a challenge, especially the construction. We like abstracts, and we also wanted our queen to be flashy.

My choice of fabrics and embellishments was to emphasize texture and depth: heavy robust velvet, shiny satin, glittery ribbon for the frame, netting to highlight the facial plane which makes up part of the central diamond, shimmery lips, a bead as a birthmark, and jewels for the crown-necklace, all highlighted in black on a white silk background.

I chose colors with strong contrast so that the design would not get lost when reduced to card size. And traditionally, the Queen of Diamonds is red, regal.