Card Sharp: Emmanuel José has stacked his decks with decorative designs

Casey Toth - newsobserver.com

Emmanuel Jose completes this week's oversized playing-card from his 52-week series from a bird-themed deck of cards in his Raleigh home Friday, May 18, 2012.

For most people, playing cards are something to, well, play with. But for Raleigh artist Emmanuel Jos, theyre something to create.

Jos, 28, makes his living as a lab support technician. And since January 2011, hes also been making one giant paper-cut card per week in transformation decks, where the card symbols are incorporated into the design. Then they go into frames for display, and Jos sells prints of them.

Jos called last years project his Curator Deck, with artwork invoking everything from fairy tales to biohazard symbols and various avian images. Birds figure even more prominently into Joss in-progress 2012 deck, Clipped Wings. Brainstorming ideas last year, he came up with so many focused on birds that he decided to make this years deck all birds. If he keeps the project going into 2013, possible future themes include Greek deities, the circus or mythological monsters.

Even though Jos doesnt really play cards himself, he has always been fascinated with them as art objects. In an art class at Davidson College, he began a series of paintings with his friends appearing as face cards. His professor was unimpressed, so he was forced to abandon it.

Still, the idea kept nagging at him. Finally, in late December of 2010, Jos set a goal of making a paper-cut card a week through 2011.

It was a way to end my artistic drought, he said. I had been an art major, but I wasnt creating art consistently since I got a job. This was a means of getting myself back into it setting a personal goal with deadlines, but without worrying about grades and teachers. It was a great mental challenge.

For all that, Jos was skeptical he could pull it off until Jan. 3, 2011, when he made his first card the ace of spades as a phoenix, which remains his favorite card from last years deck. That convinced him the project was doable.

He works in numerical order, ace through king. Throw in two jokers and a back design, and each deck involves 55 pieces of art. Jos uses scissors and X-ACTO knife to cut all the elements by hand, mounting them on the cards with precise detail.

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Card Sharp: Emmanuel José has stacked his decks with decorative designs