A richly illustrated exploration of the history, art, and design of
printed LSD blotter tabs.
Blotter is the first comprehensive written account of the history,
art, and design of LSD blotter paper, the iconic drug delivery device
that will perhaps forever be linked to underground psychedelic culture
and contemporary street art. Created in collaboration with Mark
McCloud's Institute of Illegal Images, the world's largest archive of
blotter art, Davis's boldly illustrated exhibition treats his outsider
subject with the serious, art-historical respect it deserves, while also
staying true to the sense of play, irreverence, and adventure inherent
in psychedelic exploration.
Davis weaves together two main stories: first, the largely unknown
history of blotter paper's development in the 1960s and its later
flowering in the 1970s and 1980s; and second, the story of how San
Francisco artist, professor, and "freak" McCloud began collecting
blotter and ultimately became embroiled with the LSD trade. The book
closes with a unique discussion of the market for "vanity blotter"--more
recent perforated papers produced as collectible art objects never meant
to be dipped in LSD. While vanity blotters are intimately related to the
underground blotters of the LSD trade, they effectively open up their
own visual world. As the ultimate document of this ephemeral artform,
Blotter represents an exceptional contribution to the scholarship of
art and psychedelics that will entertain older readers with lysergic
nostalgia and younger readers with its image-driven journey through a
colorful and scandalous corner of psychedelic lore.
