The making of the Two of Pentacles card
This is a card that we always enjoy designing because there are so many possibilities for conveying the broad idea of juggling a lot of things at once! We knew almost immediately that we wanted to show a cat in a harlequin costume (a jester would have been another…
Cats make a mark in Japanese prints, of course
It would be surprising if Japan didn’t have a tradition of dressed up cats doing human things. The island nation does not disappoint. Cats seem to have first come on trading ships from China about a thousand years ago, and became respected as mouse catchers. There are even temples…
Making the baroque theatre for The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre project – part two.
It’s not every day that a carpenter is asked to create a mini Baroque theatre for cats! It was a challenge that Dirk took on with enthusiasm – here he explains how he worked with Karen and Alex to make the perfect setting for The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre project.…
Making the baroque theatre for The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre project – part one.
This video explains how Karen and Alex made the decision to use a theatre setting for the new Bohemian Cats project, drawing inspiration from previous images they had created (as well as from a vivid dream Alex had!). When it came to making this vision a reality, it turned…
Mainzer Dressed Cats began as whimsical Swiss postcards
Cats dressed up and behaving like people have long been on the fringes of pop culture. In the 1940s and ’50s, Mainzer Dressed Cat postcards hit the scene, showing felines in then-contemporary costumes riotously pursuing leisure activities from sports to watching movies, or simply having picnics. These anthropomorphic cats have…
The making of The Devil card
We wanted this card for The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre Tarot to be full of symbolism and with a depth of meaning. After much thought, we turned to a very old table-top theatre that we bought from Austria, and two Czech puppets from Antonín Münzberg, a good, 1920s puppet maker. Fortunately, we also…
Anthropomorphic felines: A crash course in catstory
The Bohemian Cats images that we are currently making at BabaBarock are a new approach to a very old tradition. Today, we think nothing of seeing a cat dressed up, walking on hind legs and talking. They can be seen in animated films, cartoons, and on all sorts of merchandise from…
The Bohemian Cats’ Theatre project – how it all began.
https://youtu.be/3lsRzF0I38Q The original Baroque Bohemian Cats’ Tarot and the Bohemian Cats picture book date all the way back to 2003/4 and has been through several versions since. We’ve always loved living with cats and it came naturally to us to build to make an entire fantasy world around them…
