Last month, Queens-based artist Andrea Acevedo–aka Butterfly Mush–emerged from her hiatus chrysalis to present “Mush Arcana,” an exhibition of her fifteen most recent paintings–all depicting tarot cards. Though Mush’s signature style is a group show staple and cornerstone in NYC’s street art scene of the past decade, this exhibition marked her first solo showcase since the artist’s 40-canvas debut seven years ago.
“Mush Arcana” remained on display at CLLCTV NYC in the Lower East Side for just four short days–from Thursday, April 28 through Sunday, May 1. On opening night guests danced to a thumping DJ beneath a glittering disco ball. Beneath a butterfly canopy, Mush’s close friend and favorite tarot reader pulled cards for attendees, activating the art on the walls and honoring a major milestone in Mush’s own fool’s journey.
“I’m a whole vibe,” Mush said. “I love to be surrounded by people who are having a good time. I wanted it to be an experience.”
“I’m a whole vibe,” Mush said. “I love to be surrounded by people who are having a good time. I wanted it to be an experience.” Prior to the pandemic, she spent about a year working on a series called “Exes and Hoes,” which Mush told UP was “like a prequel to the Butterfly Mush bad bitch,” her practice’s overarching protagonist. Then disaster infamously struck in Spring 2020, shutting down “Exes and Hoes” along with all the rest of the world. “I had a little bit of an existential crisis,” Mush said. “Art seemed, at the time, like something so superficial.” She could hardly bring herself to post on Instagram.
“I had a little bit of an existential crisis,” Mush said. “Art seemed, at the time, like something so superficial.”
But as the pandemic unfolded, tragedy connected Mush more intimately with the importance of a purpose-oriented practice. First, she drew up some free coloring pages to help people stay sane. Then, when protests swept NYC following the murder of George Floyd, Mush hit the streets, made friends with activists, and offered her services as the go-to flyer and poster queen. She started supporting mutual aid efforts by decorating community fridges. “It felt really good to be a part of something, because I felt the awakening,” Mush said. “So many shitty things are happening all around us, and we don’t talk about it.”
Tarot, crystals, astrology, and other new-age lingo of ‘live your best life’ have proliferated pop culture the past decade or so–due in no small part to chaotic world events like these. Uncertainty forces faith, and that’s the secret ingredient to good magic. Like Alan Watts once said, “In giving away the control, you’ve got it.” Still, though most people have seen “The Sun” or “Death” card one way or another, far fewer know what these archetypes actually mean.
A full tarot deck includes 78 cards–56 minor arcana, and 22 majors. Minor arcana mimic a regular set of playing cards, with four suits–swords, wands, cups, and pentacles (or coins.) Some decks interpret the suits as different symbols, but their elements and human humors remain consistent: swords align with air and the intellect, wands with fire and creation, cups with water and emotions, pentacles with earth and material stability. Each suit has 13 cards, also like a standard deck of cards. Numbers lend nuance on a cross section. For example, five–the number of change–symbolizes strife across the four suits: defeat in swords, competition in wands, pessimism in cups, and worry in pentacles.
Imagery from some minor arcana cards like the three of swords and nine of cups have broken into the mainstream, but the general populace know the major arcana best of all–cards like the sun, the moon, and the star. If the minor arcana speaks of passing episodes in a querent’s life, then major arcana are the big life lessons. The major arcana actually tells a story about the Fool–card 0–the embodiment of a fresh start, who first meets the Magician, then the High Priestess, the Empress and Emperor, before passing through ravaging later stages like the Tower and Judgment. The fool’s journey ends with the World, which means the culmination of a cycle, and sometimes even travel.
Although 2020’s revolution reconnected Mush with passion for her practice, she found herself burnt out like so many others after all the activity. “I took a step back from activism, and slowly got back into what makes me happy and what brought joy,” she said. “Astrology brings me a lot of joy—learning about it, being up to date with transits, zodiacs, and people’s birth charts.” The concept for “Mush Arcana” came to fruition as she contemplated how to synthesize her love for art with her love for astrology and tarot and spirituality.
Mush had planned to make the work and then shop venues, but a good friend and partner at CLLCTV posted about the space on IG. Eager to showcase a female artist and intrigued by Mush’s pending tarot series, CLLCTV offered her a slot one month later. The artist wondered if she could paint every tarot card in that time, but when she saw the space herself she decided that painting a selection of 15 cards would make a better fit. The choice lightened her workload, while empowering Mush to hone her focus on favored aspects of the fool’s journey.
She finished by the weekend of April 15th–just in time for the full moon in her own sun sign, Libra. “Mush Arcana” opened “the last day before the new moon eclipse and all of the madness and energy that the Eclipse brings,” Mush said. “It worked out really well.”
22 paintings for all 22 of the major arcana cards could’ve made sense in a nice way too–in her interview with UP Mag, Mush revealed that after 22 years living in NYC, she’s moving herself and her family to a remote seaside location in South America. “The idea was planted in January about the move,” Mush said. “My husband and I were like, ‘You know what, let’s just go on an adventure. Let’s try it out for a year, we could always come back.’”
Thus, “Mush Arcana” tells the tale of the fool’s journey with a concrete jungle slant. The entire show’s an ode to her NYC era, which started when the nascent artist was eighteen.
Colombian-born Mush now confidently counts herself an artist, but words are shakier territory. English is her second language. “I am actually very insecure about my writing skills, but I am a communicator,” Mush said. Her solo show seven years ago featured narrative wall text alongside each work–there, stories of the girls on her canvases. Her then-boyfriend and now-husband coaxed her into creating the text for that show with a bottle of wine and a strong line of questioning. “He typed out all the nonsense that came out of my mouth,” she laughed.
The descriptions that accompanied “Mush Arcana” mimicked informational booklets that sometimes come with tarot decks to give backstory behind each card. That way, uninitiated attendees who caught the show could understand why some canvases attracted them more than others–the life lessons enveloping them during the show’s run. “I did it the night before,” Mush said of the wall text. She wrote from the heart and hit print without proofreading.
Some cards across “Mush Arcana,” like the Chariot and Wheel of Fortune, deliver direct allusions to NYC–a yellow cab, Coney Island’s infamous Wonder Wheel. “What does it all mean to me?” She asked herself while at work on the exhibition. “How can I put this in a giant love letter to the city, and tell the story of how it shaped me, and how this concrete jungle–the craziest city in the world–was where I started my path to spirituality and enlightenment?”
“How can I put this in a giant love letter to the city, and tell the story of how it shaped me, and how this concrete jungle–the craziest city in the world–was where I started my path to spirituality and enlightenment?”
“No one comes to New York for that, you know what I mean?” she mused. “People come to New York to make it and make money. You end up going to bars every night and drinking and staying out too late and doing all of the things that are the opposite of spirituality.”
Spirituality has gained associations centered around love and light, but it’s really a matter of persisting. That’s what faith is–believing, even when there’s no reason to. Mush said she had her doubts while creating the show–not only about time, but trusting her own talents and trusting the viewer to effectively interpret them. Over the course of her creative career, she’s honed a very specific style and stuck to it consistently–girls in similar situations, outfits, consistent themes and colorways and always that thick black Mush outline.
“With this collection, I was a lot more fearless,” she said. “If you look at my older work, it’s always very two dimensional. It’s a forward facing girl, or a pose that I’m very comfortable with drawing—laying down or sitting up. There’s not a lot of variety. With this collection, there’s buildings, there’s animals, there’s a Ferris wheel, there are clouds and angels, and there’s a lot of different elements to my art that I brought in.”
Painting the Strength card in particular made Mush nervous–maybe ironically. She’d never painted a lioness, and wanted this one to command respect. “I didn’t want to do some elemental drawing of a lion,” she explained, “so I really tapped into advice from other artists.” Heeding their counsel, she kept self-editing at bay, “working quicker in a more sketchy mode and not worrying so much that one line is going to be perfect.” What’s more, she hasn’t used any black in this new series–shedding her need to delineate forms so starkly, playing with light and shadow in new ways instead.
“I don’t need to show you that distinction,” Mush said. “You can see it if you choose to see it.”
Chaos, as opposed to order, reigns the purview of feminine energy. This is the intuitive cosmic soup that magic and spirituality spring from. “If you’re a woman in New York, you have all of a sudden started being interested in astrology and tarot and the universe, and manifesting,” But feminine energy is not the exclusive purview of those who identify as female. Every arrangement of atoms commands a malleable counterbalance with proportions of masculinity. As opening night bore on, she was pleasantly surprised to see the snaking line outside the canopy stocked with numerous men. Some guys told her this was their very first tarot reading.
“I love that. I know my art is very much geared towards women,” Mush said. “That’s done on purpose, obviously. But I’m not closing the door to men—I’m inviting them in. Come check out this mystical world that I think you would like.”
“I love that. I know my art is very much geared towards women,” Mush said. “That’s done on purpose, obviously. But I’m not closing the door to men—I’m inviting them in. Come check out this mystical world that I think you would like.”
Men looking to harness their feminine energy must be down with the cause. While she acknowledges manifestation is just as much a practical tool as a mystical ritual, the inquisitions of witches were real.
“They didn’t want us to be in our full power,” Mush said of the monolithic patriarchy, “because they know how powerful we are. We’re so powerful, we would probably be leading so many more roles in society. But they didn’t want that.’”
“Mush Arcana” celebrates and seeks to reinstate feminine energy’s personal power, regardless of its corresponding ratio, so long as it’s never stifled.
“That was the general message for most of the cards,” she explained. “You’ve got this magic inside of you, you just don’t know it yet. Trust it, take the leap of faith and believe it and learn to silence other things, quiet the world around you, so that you can truly hear your gut and truly hear your intuition. I think that’s the biggest takeaway—connecting to yourself, connecting to source and trusting that you are capable of these things. That all ties into gaining the confidence you need to be able to navigate the world.”
“You’ve got this magic inside of you, you just don’t know it yet. Trust it, take the leap of faith and believe it and learn to silence other things, quiet the world around you, so that you can truly hear your gut and truly hear your intuition.”
It’s as simple as going to the bodega and expertly selecting top shelf snacks, like the Magician in her “Mush Arcana.”
And what’s next for Butterfly Mush herself, on the heels of this triumph and the precipice of a new chapter? “That is the great unknown,” she replied. “Fifteen [or so] years ago, I really manifested that I wanted to have a beautiful family in New York City. I wanted to grow as an artist and have a flourishing career. I look at my life now, and I have that… I’m so grateful, but it’s been very predictable. I’m still tapping into old stories of my past lives for creativity and inspiration.”
“With this move, I’m going on a full adventure to a completely different country, and I’m going to be living very closely amongst nature,” she continued. “I’m really excited to see how I’m going to be inspired. There’s no telling what’s coming next, just that there’s a lot coming next.”
Unknowns are a constant, even if consumer society would like to convince us otherwise. Personal power means choosing those unknowns on purpose–just like Butterfly Mush is. “I create all these amazing pieces living in New York City. I can’t imagine what’s gonna come out of me when I’m connected to Mother Earth.”
“I create all these amazing pieces living in New York City. I can’t imagine what’s gonna come out of me when I’m connected to Mother Earth.”
Even divination magic must be done with intention. Sometimes it’s better not to know the future.
