From Steel to Sacred: How Our Tarot Card Wall Art is Made
There is a moment when a flat sheet of cold rolled steel becomes something else entirely — something with depth, history, and presence. That transformation is what drives every piece we create at Nine of Coins Metal Art, and nowhere is it more visible than in our tarot card wall art series.
Here's a look at how these pieces come to life.
It Starts in the 17th Century
The inspiration for our tarot card series comes from Italian tarot decks of the 1600s — some of the oldest and most visually striking tarot imagery ever created. There is a rawness and mystery to those early cards that speaks across centuries. We wanted to capture that feeling, but in metal.
Each card begins with deep research into the original imagery — the symbolism, the composition, the feeling. Our Sun card, Il Sole, is the exception: that design is largely original, born from Heidi's own vision of what the Sun should feel like in steel.
Designing for the Plasma Cutter
Once the imagery is established, Heidi draws each card digitally, converting the design into a file that our CNC plasma cutter can read. This is where ancient symbolism meets modern fabrication — a 17th century tarot card translated into precise digital coordinates, then cut from steel with a plasma torch.
The cutting itself is only the beginning.
Alvaro's Craft: Layers, Bends, and Welds
What makes our tarot pieces truly dimensional is the layering — and that is entirely Alvaro's domain. Where another metalworker might leave a piece flat, Alvaro sees depth. He uses a spot welder to attach multiple layers of cut steel on top of each other, building up the composition so it rises off the wall and catches light in ways a flat piece never could.
He also bends and welds the edges of each piece, giving them a finished, sculptural quality that sets them apart. These are not prints. They are not flat cutouts. They are hand-built metal sculptures that happen to hang on your wall.
Heidi's Finish: Intuitive, Unrepeatable
Once the metalwork is complete, the piece comes to Heidi for finishing — and this is where things get beautifully unpredictable.
Working with acrylic paint, rust, and patina, Heidi builds up layers of color and texture through a process that is entirely intuitive. Paint is applied, then scraped back. Applied again. Rusted. Patinated. Worked and reworked until the piece feels right. There is no formula, no fixed recipe — just instinct, experience, and a deep sensitivity to what the metal wants to become.
The result is that no two pieces are ever exactly alike. Even within the same card design, each finished piece carries its own character, its own mood, its own story.
A Living Series
Our current tarot collection includes Il Sole (The Sun), La Morte (Death), and Le Stelle (The Star) — each one a meditation on the card's meaning, rendered in steel, paint, and time.
These are pieces made for people who want art that means something. Art that carries history, craft, and a little bit of magic.