Tarot Deck by Rick “Madam Clara” Pomer
Explore the Original Madam Clara Tarot Cards
Browse the card artwork and fortune ribbons. Filter by section, or open any card in the larger carousel to study the artwork and fortune ribbons closely.
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Aurica’s Quick Take
I love how Madam Clara Sees All! feels like a cabinet of old carnival posters flung open at midnight. Coral red, turquoise, mustard gold, and curious vintage figures give every card a little theatrical spark.
In a reading, my eye goes first to the strongest gesture—a raised hand, a turning wheel, or a cup held close. Then I let the fortune ribbon arrive like a second voice, checking whether its words agree with the picture or gently challenge it.
This is not a shy deck, and that is exactly its charm. Give its lively images room to speak, and they can help you meet a difficult question with curiosity, courage, and a brighter sense of possibility.
What makes the Original Madam Clara Tarot different?
Madam Clara’s Original Deck feels immediate: it stages each card like a fortune-teller’s poster. A central figure or emblem meets a burst of rays, a black title banner, and a white ribbon carrying two directional prompts. The result feels part carnival broadside, part mid-century screen print, and part practical reading cue.
The palette changes from card to card but keeps returning to turquoise, coral red, mustard gold, cream, and black. Those colors create continuity even when the source imagery shifts from sculpture to engraving, flora, animals, tools, or abstract rays. The border system is strong enough that a mixed spread still reads as one visual sentence.
The Fool — a fresh start with one foot already moving
A bare figure steps between gold sunbursts, an uplifted red flower, and a pale animal at the edge of the frame. The image is unusually exposed and kinetic. Its visible fortune text points toward following the heart and looking before the leap, letting openness and caution occupy the same card.
In a reading, this Fool can work as a permission card—but not as permission to ignore the terrain. Ask what deserves a wholehearted beginning, then name the one practical check that keeps enthusiasm from becoming carelessness.
How the Original Madam Clara Tarot reads in practice
Start with the loudest element: posture, object, direction, or burst of color. Then read the fortune ribbon as a second voice—not a fixed definition. Because each ribbon presents upright and reversed wording, it can help a hesitant reader begin, but the picture should still be allowed to contradict or complicate the printed cue.
The deck is particularly good at questions that need movement: What is changing? Who has leverage? Where is energy gathering? Courts are assertive, suit emblems are easy to spot, and even quiet cards keep a poster-like sense of momentum.
The fortune window
A compact decision spread that moves from personal agency to hidden knowledge, changing conditions, and directed action.
Read the first two cards as inner resources and the last two as movement. The synthesis question is: What can I direct without pretending I control the whole cycle?
Is the Original Madam Clara Tarot beginner-friendly?
It is friendlier than many art decks because the card names, suit structure, and courts remain familiar. The fortune ribbons also offer an immediate sentence when a beginner feels stuck. The risk is over-reliance: reading only the ribbon can flatten a rich image into a slogan.
A useful learning method is to cover the ribbon for the first minute. Name three visible details, describe the emotional temperature, and decide where the figure or object seems to be moving. Then reveal the ribbon and ask whether it confirms, narrows, or challenges your first impression.
Easy reading
What energy is most available today? Pull one card and name its clearest action before reading the ribbon.
Medium reading
What is changing beneath the surface? Read three cards as appearance, hidden pressure, and next move.
Deep reading
Whose story is shaping this choice? Compare the figures’ poses, directions, and repeated colors before adding traditional meanings.
Wheel of Fortune — a turning pattern
The card centers a red wheel, a curling serpent and pale winged creatures against turquoise rays. The curved forms make its message about fortune returning feel tangible: what seems still is already part of a turning pattern.
Read it as timing plus response. What is circling back? What can be released or redirected now? Let the wheel suggest a changing season rather than a verdict: you may not choose every turn, but you can choose how to meet it.
Love, intimacy, and emotional truth
The Cups and relationship Majors do not whisper. Figures, vessels, tears, flowers, and red-white contrasts create an emotional register that is easy to feel at a glance. That directness can be useful when a reading needs honesty about attraction, disappointment, boundaries, or care.
For love readings, resist turning every dramatic color into drama in the relationship. Use the fortune ribbon as one layer, then ask what the bodies and objects are actually doing. Exchange is not the same as desire; grief is not the same as failure; compassion is not the same as self-erasure.
The heart beneath the banner
A relationship spread for separating attraction, exchange, grief, and emotional stewardship.
Do not force a happy or unhappy ending. Let the four positions distinguish chemistry from reciprocity, mourning, and the capacity to care wisely.
Work, money, and creative momentum
Pentacles are concrete and visually legible, while Wands bring strong posture and forward drive. Together they make the deck useful for career questions, launches, pricing, study, and the difference between inspiration and repeatable craft.
The Original Deck tends to make decisions look active. If a spread feels blocked, look for crossed forms, downward gazes, repeated tools, or a figure holding a single staff. Those details can show whether the real need is patience, skill-building, commitment, or leadership.
The practical crossroads
A work and money spread that tests whether an opening can survive effort, indecision, and leadership.
Follow the visual shift from offered coin to repeated work, crossed blades, and an upright staff. Opportunity becomes useful only after practice and a clear choice.
Rick Pomer’s art and fortune-telling voice
Rick “Madam Clara” Pomer is the creator associated with Madam Clara Sees All! The maker’s archived account traces the character to a Salem Witches Ball costume inspired by an antique penny-arcade fortune teller. Those theatrical roots make sense of the eye motifs, dramatic lettering and little fortunes: each card feels like a message sliding out of a mysterious booth. Creator account, archived August 2025 [1].
The maker describes the designs as collage, vintage engravings and graphic patterns grounded in Rider–Waite symbolism. This is a familiar tarot framework with an independent visual voice, not a promise that every picture duplicates a Rider–Waite–Smith scene. The archived shop description calls the designs original illustrations and compositions by the maker. Design account [1]; Original product description, archived January 2026 [2].
The two extra images invite a gentler kind of curiosity. The maker describes them as equal and opposite, light and dark, and gives them no fixed specific significance. Reading them as a pause, a contrast or a closing reflection is therefore a personal reading choice, not an official system of meanings. Creator’s explanation of the extras [1].
Fate, Destiny, Fortune — a deliberate interruption
The palmistry-hand card abandons the deck’s usual figurative scene for a near-black field, radiating gold lines, a labeled hand, and oversized lettering. Together with the skull version, it sits outside the familiar tarot sequence and announces the deck’s fortune-teller identity without disguise.
Use either special card as an oracle-like hinge: a sign that the reading’s next move is to synthesize rather than pull another conventional tarot card. The palm asks what is being shaped; the skull asks what must be accepted as finite.
When the usual sequence needs a pause
I find these extra Fate images most useful after the familiar cards have had their say. Rather than reaching for another neat definition, return to the question itself: what is within your reach, and what are you trying to hurry into an answer? The interruption can make room for a more honest conversation with the spread.
The following four-card study brings those two perspectives together with Death and The Sun. Let the images suggest what has run its course and what deserves fresh attention. There is no need to make their voices agree immediately; sometimes the useful insight is the tension between accepting a limit and choosing a generous next step.
Fate speaks in two voices
A deck-specific spread that lets the two special cards frame transformation and renewal.
Treat destiny as a conversation between limit and agency. Death clears the completed cycle; The Sun asks what becomes generous, visible, and alive afterward.
Buying and edition guidance
The Original Deck is an illustrated family, not one interchangeable printing. The earlier white-fortune-ribbon treatment shown in this gallery differs from the darker fortune bands visible in the accompanying video. Both belong to the Madam Clara Sees All! family, but the footage does not identify the printing of the cards pictured here. Compare individual card fronts, backs and the seller’s actual packaging photographs before choosing a copy. Video reference [4].
The maker’s Original Deck page, archived in May 2026, advertises a fourth-edition reboot. The shop record archived in January 2026 explicitly describes that fourth edition as 78 tarot cards plus two extras, with a linen finish, matte-gilded edges, a redesigned gold back and a matching eye pouch. Those are specifications of that offer, not established properties of an earlier copy. Original project notice, archived May 2026 [5]; Fourth-edition product record [2].
The 5-Cent Tarot is a separate Madam Clara project. Its maker description replaces pentacles with buttons, swords with needles, wands with matchsticks and cups with teacups; those details should not be transferred to the Original Deck. Separate project record, archived February 2026 [3].
For a second-hand purchase, ask for clear photographs of the named cards, both extra designs, the backs and the box. Confirm whether any pouch or instructions are actually included. An archived offer is useful for comparing editions, but it cannot establish today’s stock, price or the contents of another seller’s copy.
Final Thoughts
The Original Madam Clara Tarot succeeds because it commits to a voice. Its cards are bold, funny, dramatic, and unexpectedly practical. The collage sources may be vintage, but the reading experience is fast and contemporary: look, feel the movement, read the ribbon, and answer back.
Its strongest audience is a reader who enjoys visual theatre and wants a deck that can animate a spread quickly. Its weakness is the same quality turned up too far: the printed fortunes can dominate unless you deliberately return to the image. Used with that discipline, the deck becomes more than a novelty—it becomes a lively, coherent tool for story, choice, and reflection.
Madam Clara Sees All! FAQ
Who created Madam Clara Sees All!?
Rick “Madam Clara” Pomer is the creator associated with the Original Deck. The maker describes its designs as original illustrations and compositions, using collage, vintage engravings and graphic patterns. Creator account [1]; Product description [2].
How many cards does the Original Deck have?
The archived fourth-edition offer specifies 78 tarot cards plus two extras. That statement describes that edition; check an earlier or second-hand copy against its own contents. The maker leaves the two extras open to interpretation rather than assigning fixed specific meanings. Fourth-edition contents [2]; Explanation of the extras [1].
Is this the same deck as the 5-Cent Tarot?
No. Madam Clara’s Original Deck and the 5-Cent Tarot are separate projects. The latter uses buttons, needles, matchsticks and teacups as its suit objects; those are not Original Deck specifications. Separate project description [3].
Is Madam Clara Sees All! suitable for beginners?
The familiar card names and printed upright and reversed fortunes offer a welcoming starting point. Look at the picture first, then use the fortune as a prompt rather than a final verdict. The maker describes the symbolism as Rider–Waite-based, while the collage gives it its own atmosphere. Design explanation [1]; Fortune-text description [2].
Does the video show the same printing as the gallery?
It shows the same illustrated family, but its darker fortune bands differ from the earlier white-ribbon cards pictured here. Use it as a family-level visual introduction, not proof of the gallery’s exact printing or the contents of a current offer. Accompanying video [4].
