Ink Fish Press ~ Pennsylvania
(Tara O'Brien)

om shanti
By Tara O'Brien
2005. Edition of 7.

7.5 x 4.75" in a flag book structure. The Hindu calligraphy is pressure printed. The Latin text is letterpress. Printed and bound by the artist.

Om Shanti, as a conclusion to a prayer, asks for peace to come into the world. Each page, containing both the Hindu word and the Latin translation, can be read up and down or left to right; thus, the mantra - om shanti shanti shanti om, is completed. The gold string wound through the book echoes the traditional palm leaf binding of religious texts commonly found in India, Burma, and Thailand.

Tara O'Brien: "This book was a happy accident. I printed fifty copies for my holiday greeting cards which would then be bound as actual palm leaf books. But once I started putting the cards together I realized that in order for that structure to work, the Latin text had to be printed upside down. Rather than throw all of these pieces out, I decided to save them. I finished my graduate thesis at the beginning of April and came across the pieces as I was cleaning out my studio. The amount of cards and structure of the flag book worked perfectly to have the mantra repeat seven times within each book, and for there to be seven books. It is also the only book I managed to complete (print and bind) while actually in graduate school."                                       
$80

a still dawn
By Tara O'Brien
2004. Edition of 100.

4.75 x 8.5" Off set printed, hand cut and hand bound. Paper covered boards. Images taken on Highway 395 and on the hike over mammoth Crest with a Canon PowerShot G6 digital camera. Font is Adobe Garamond Pro. Pages are cut away to resemble a mountain range.

Tara O'Brien: "Hike with me through the beautiful Sierra Nevadas of California. The narrative leas through panoramas of mountains, valleys and lakes...

This book was inspired by many summer vacations in mammoth Lakes, California. Mammoth is located approximately six hours north of Los Angeles by car, and just directly south of Yosemite National Park. Mammoth and Yosemite were both initially created by receding glaciers, but Mammoth Mountain is an extinct volcano and the area has been heavily influenced by volcanic activity even to this day. it is a sleepy town in the summer and a raging party during the ski season. We always went in the summer and my sister and I were chased all over the mountains by our parents. It is a place where one can hike all day and only meet one or two people. It is incredibly dry and the high altitude keeps the weather cooler than in Los Angeles. There is no smog and the air is so fresh you can distinguish which plants you are smelling as you hike past them. When I moved to Philadelphia didn't realize how home sick I was for California landscape until I went home for a visit and went to Mammoth. This book is my way of keeping me from missing it too much."                             
$75

The Story of Little Goose
By Tara O'Brien
2003-2004. Edition of 100.

5 x 9" in gray cloth covered boards with a blind stamped impression of "Little Goose." Offset printed. Structure based on a design by Heidi Kyle.

This little story is a humorous one of a renter's woes.

Tara O'Brien: "The Story of Little Goose was inspired by my first landlord experience when moving to Philadelphia from Los Angeles. I had a rough time finding a place to live, and then the apartment I did rent leaked when it rained. The leaking could be defined more accurately as: waterfalls down walls, saturated carpets, mold released every time the carpets were re-saturated. I kept asking for the problem to be fixed, but of course nothing happened. After two months I'd had enough and many pieces which made it possible for me to move, fell into place.

The actual book originated as an assignment. We pulled two images and two pieces of text from an envelope and were instructed to create a book. I pulled the goose, a postcard with an image of Philadelphia buildings on it, my own writing on rage (directed at my landlord) and a piece on traveling. The Story of Little Goose is the final result."                                       
$50