Tara B.'s Page

My name is Tara- I'm an artist, illustrator, DJ, do-it-yourselfer, punk rocker, zine librarian and long-time zine maker.

I made my first zine, Poseur Grrrl when I was 14 years old after learning about early punk fanzines such as Sniffin' Glue, Search and Destroy and the Sex Pistols' fanzine, Anarchy in the UK. Poseur Grrrl started out as a punk fanzine, but evolved into more of a personal/political zine as years went on. At 15, I started Poseur Grrrl Mailorder, a zine distro I ran out of my bedroom, which carried popular titles from Canada and the US, with a special focus on punk/feminist/girl-oriented zines. A few years later, I became involved with Who's Emma, Toronto's original Anarchist info-shop, where I was the head of the zine committee and a core collective member until the space closed in the fall of 2000.

It's worth mentioning that doing zines and zine art was instrumental in getting me into doing illustration work. I've included some examples here of work I've done over the past several years, which has ranged from punk poster and album cover art to children's book illustration.

Ten years after I first discovered them, I still make and collect zines and have incorporated zine/book-making into my practice as a visual artist. My most recent zines have been mainly art-based, and are usually made up of excerpts from my sketchbooks. I have conducted numerous talks and workshops on zines and zinemaking, both on my own and with the Toronto Zine Library. My most recent zine-related projects include The Ninth Grade Notes Project, which is a collection of re-prints of notes passed to me in high school, and I'm currently working on a collaborative art zine with my pal Ted inspired by 1950s horror/EC comic art and a zine of interviews called Punk Rockers on Creative Survival and the Survival of Creativity, both which should be out this summer.

My Website
My Blog
The Toronto Zine Library website
The Toronto Zine Library blog

Selected Zine-o-graphy
Poseur Grrrl #1-12 (1997-2003)
Stephanie Kaye is a Slag (2002?)
Poseur Grrrl #13: The Eating Disorder Issue (2004)
Tell Me a Secret (2004)
Tea Bag (2004)
Plastic Nurses and Science Freaks (2005)
Cahier (2005)
El Corazon (2006)
From Russia with Love (2006)
Teenage Lust (2007)
The Ninth Grade Notes Project (2008)

With the Toronto Zine Library:
TZL Resource Zine #2 (2007)
TZL Resource Zine #3 (2007)
TZL Resource Zine #4 (2008)