| Title | Tibetan Prayer Flags |
| Artist / Creator | Marilyn Stablein |
| Press Name | Book Arts Editions |
| Artist's Nationality | United States |
| Place of Publication | Portland OR |
| Publication Date | 2012 |
| Author of Text | Marilyn Stablein |
| Process / Technique | Laser prints |
| Number of Images | 3 hand colored prints |
| Structure / Binding | Accordion |
| Medium / Materials | Book board, raised silkscreen cover, lokta colophon, lokta folio insert, sheer silk gab with gathered tie string |
| Paper Stock | Canson, lokta |
| Number of Pages | 8 |
| Dimensions (WxHxD) | 4.5 x 9 x 0.5 inches. Opens to 35 inches. |
| Edition Size | Limited edition of 8 |
| Box / Wrapper | Silk tie string bag |
| Signed & Numbered | Signed and numbered edition |
Tibetan Prayer Flags by Marilyn Stablein
Unique collector's item pays homage to the Tibetan ritual custom of printing and hanging wind-powered protective prayer flags in environmentally sensitive areas to ensure good luck to residents and travelers. It is a Tibetan custom to harness the kinetic energy of the elements of air, water and fire to help generate good luck and circulate prayers. A popular Tibetan New Year’s ritual is to print and install new five-color prayer flags every year. When gusty breezes rustle the flags, the wind empowers the prayers to create a safe environment in dangerous high altitude terrains. The blocks are printed on cotton flags then stitched to ropes stretched between trees, rooftops and temples. Some cross dangerous rivers or the summits of high mountain passes.
The accordion fold book contains two pop-up hand-colored reproductions of Tibetan prayer flags and a long life amulet from my collection of over a hundred and fifty woodblock prints on indigenous vintage lokta paper I gathered during a six year artist residency to study book arts and calligraphy in the Himalayas in the 1960s. A folded inserted Note records a short travel narrative about my 2009 visit to a Nepalese Paper Studio in Kathmandu where I found the decorative 4-color silkscreen print on the cover.
This unique collector's item celebrates the Tibetan rituals practiced by Tibetan refugees who resettled in Nepal after fleeing the Chinese invasion of their country.
Tibetan calligraphy on title page by the artist. Enclosed miniature prayer flag from Nepal.
Artist Bio
Marilyn Stablein, a multidisciplinary artist, works in collage, installation, mixed media, prose and artist books. She is an award winning author of fifteen books including Houseboat on the Ganges & A Room in Kathmandu, an epistolary mail art memoir penned on international aerograms which won the National Federation of Press Women’s Memoir Award. Her limited edition artist books are exhibited internationally and are in private and public collections including: SUNY Buffalo, Yale University Beinecke Rare Book Library, Brown University Library, The British Library, Univ. of Arizona, and UW Suzallo and Allen Libraries Special Collections. She is based in Portland, Oregon.