National Public Radio gave McCloud exposure, and he won grants from the National Endowment for the Arts, and others. (The older pieces from his collection have been purposefully exposed to ultraviolet light, to destroy any LSD that might have been on them.) McCloud promoted his collection at galleries, and he won second place at the 1987 San Francisco County Fair for his “unusual but timely” art exhibition. But soon McCloud began to produce his own images- as well as make connections to other such artists in the community-and the bulk of his collection shifted to completely legal, undipped blotter. Ironically, it was initially quite difficult for McCloud to collect the undipped (and hence legal) sheets of art, making him both an art collector and a potential outlaw due to his interest in this unique form of folk art. He bought these sheets, matted and framed them, and hung them like fine art. In the early days this art could only be obtained with LSD already on it. McCloud’s collection covered everything from the late 1970s up to today: several hundred types of LSD blotter art. The original collector and scene maker of blotter art is Mark McCloud, a San Francisco artist and former art professor. Over the years, examples of appropriated cartoons have included Otto Messmer’s “Felix the Cat” and Walt Disney’s “Goofy” and “Mickey Mouse Sorcerer’s Apprentice,” as well as the more contemporary “Beavis and Butt-head,” “Bart Simpson,” and “South Park.” But one of the most consistently popular inspirations for blotter imagery has remained the lowly comic or animated character. Examples include: “Chinese Dragons,” “Pentagrams,” “Tetragammatons,” “Eye of Horus,” “Knights of Malta Crests,” and so on. Occult or religious symbols, moire patterns, and fractal designs have been exploited on blotter art. It also seems to enhance the creative process. LSD is a powerful spiritual experience for many, and for some this experience has political overtones. Every variety of pop art and ideology became fair game, as LSD blotter art spread like wild fire. Natural” and “Flying Eyeballs.” In more recent years, work from contemporary psychedelic artists has also appeared on blotter, such as “Carbon Jesus” (aka “Purple Jesus”) by Alex Grey, “Lucifer” by Reverend Samuel, and “Tribute to Preston Blair” by Frank Kozik.Įventually, satirical blotter art started showing up one sheet depicted the “FBI Emblems,” while another featured the mug of former Soviet president Mikhail Gorbachev-the popular “Gorby” acid. Crumb and Stanley Mouse soon saw their images appropriated for use on LSD art, which featured the likes of “Mr. (This cover later appeared in miniature on LSD blotter art.) In San Francisco, underground comic and rock-and-roll poster artists like R. The album cover art that they produced for Santana’s Abraxas reflected this new style. In the late 1960s, “fantastic realist” painters like Mati Klarwein and Robert Venosa were heavily influenced by LSD. Perforations for blotter are nowadays primarily done by professionals in the print industry, quickly stamped out by the thousands via automated die-cutting machines.Īs LSD entered our cultural consciousness, it affected a generation of artists. One blotter art producer recently even went so far to print his design on a hemp-blend paper with soy-based edible inks. These days, the art is usually printed via the four-color separation process. This trend has continued, and even today, most street LSD is still distributed on perforated or unperforated blotter paper, often covered with logos or art, and sometimes sold under “brand names.” In the past, blotter art was printed fairly secretively, with underground producers perforating it using hand-cranked machines, feeding in a single sheet and cutting it in one direction at a time, before flipping the sheet 90 degrees to crank the completing set of perf lines. Around 1970, LSD first began to appear on sheets of perforated blotter paper.
This story is about the origins and development of blotter as an art form.Įarly on in the underground trade of illegal LSD, it was distributed in pills or capsules, or sometimes dropped onto sugar cubes. MAPS has recently received nearly $20,000 due to the sale of signed blotter art that was donated by Tom Lyttle and Jon Hanna.
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