Posted on 02/14/2019 5:38:45 AM PST by vannrox
“It kept me from eating it if it was framed on the wall” - Mark Mcloud on his amazing collection of LSD Blotters
On October 6, 1966 (aka ‘The Day of the Beast’ in psychedelic circles) California banned the possession of LSD. Two years later the law went nationwide. Mark McCloud did as anyone of vision might: he began buying loads of blotters, sheets of paper infused with LSD, for consumption. Eventually his San Francisco home filled with thousands of LSD tabs. Over time the acid broke down. So now the framed sheets (part of an archive of more than 33,000 sheets and individual tabs), and Mark’s “Institute of Illegal Images” – “the most comprehensive collection of decorated LSD blotter paper in the world” – can be viewed by art buffs, former heads and anyone who wants to see objects that came to define an era.
The art is broadly two-fold: graphics and visions of the sort of thing you see after ingesting LSD. They are, says Mark, who earned a Masters of Fine Art from UC Davis, “examples of true American folk art, like whittling.”
When did you start collecting it?
“Oh, that was when the first imagery came out. See, when acid first came out it was just drops on paper. This was in 1968, and it was the first commercially available acid. It came out of New York City, and it was done by this great underground chemist called Ghost-may he rest in peace-and they were called five-by-twenties. They were five drops by 20 on a little card that was the same size as autochrome film, and it came out wrapped in Kodak packaging.”And when did the first illustrated tabs appear?
“In the 70s. There’s a whole vignette of imagery that appears throughout that era, and it’s usually on sheets of paper the same size as an LP so they could ship it dressed as a record. The first sheets would have a single image that would be divided up into the tabs, usually in a single color. They quickly became individual pictures, though, with great detail.” – Vice
McCloud, who emigrated from Argentina when he was 8, traces his curatorial enthusiasm to high school at the Webb School for Gentlemen, a Claremont, Calif., boarding school. One day, a narcotics officer visited Webb to give an anti-drug talk, and supplemented his sermon with the visual aid of a comprehensive drug collection.
“There were all these little bundles and syringes and pipes arranged in this vitrine,” he says. “I said, ‘Wow, pretty weird.’ ”
At the time, McCloud was an enthusiastic coin collector, and the narc’s stash-in-a-glass-box planted the seed for the collection the aspiring artist would start in 1975, just a few years later, as the festively printed blotters proliferated on the street.
“I had collected blotters before, but [1975] was the first conscious effort to preserve it. The collection lived in the refrigerator for the first eight years–for a long time I didn’t know which way it was going to go,” McCloud says. “I can’t tell you how many collections I ended up munching.” – via Jack Shafer
“I let myself vibrate beyond this world, into something different, and that’s when I started my collection for good. At first I kept the blotters in the freezer, but it was problematic: I spent my time eating them . Then Albert Hofmann’s acid was put on the market and I thought, “Shit, I have to fit that. And then like that, I did not risk to consume them. “
Via BlotterBarn
“A guy named Owsley”
Fascinating. I looked this guy up and he was in the USAF in 1958. The 50’s and 60’s were prime years for the CIA’s MKUltra and related research going on in the US and Canada of which LSD was extensively tested and used on university students and US Military.
The question being, did this guy have some connection to this research. Even if he were one of the research test subjects while in the USAF would give him such a connection.
Those interested in how LSD factored in to the death of a CIA researcher, watch “Wormwood” on Netflix. This is a multi-part documentary discussing LSD and related CIA activities of the era.
...but he calls himself Chris Hahn.
Ahhh, synesthesia. The sensory equivalent of fusion cooking.
Might have come from the conspiracy to get rid of Dulles... /:-J
As such, a lot of candy mfgs use color and strawberry flavoring to make you think you're actually tasting other, color-linked fruit flavors.
True. As a kid, I wondered why some of the lifesaver flavors seemed a bit weak compared to the flavor indicated by the color. Over time, as food chemistry developed, the flavors seemed to get better (I remember when they introduced tropical flavored Lifesavers). Or, maybe I just got conditioned.
Jerry Garcia’s Hand. How appropriate
Frank Zappa
What's there to live for?
Who needs the peace corps?
Think I'll just DROP OUT
I'll go to Frisco
Buy a wig & sleep
On Owsley’s floor
“Seeing Music!”
Yes,
Weird stuff.
Exactly. It was a little too cute that he got busted, sued, and they even gave him back all his laboratory glassware, the bunsen burners and all that stuff I guess. He was cranking out millions of doses of the stuff.
If one starts digging into Leary and Owsley and the whole “counterculture” and Hippie thing it starts to get really strange how all those guys were connected to government research “black ops” into mind control and destabilization efforts. Like most psy-ops they first work at the university level and then roll it out on the general population at a later time.
I visited my cousin in 1972 in Palo Alto.
He had a quart bottle of 100 proof Smirnoff. Into that bottle he put an eye dropper and dropped a drop onto 3 separate pieces of plain paper for myself and two friends.
He swore it was the concoction of a close associate of Owsley, AND that Owsley continued to make small batches in collaboration with “students” he was personally mentoring. It was known, and even acknowledged in government charging documents that the process he developed produced LSD-25 that was 99.99% pure.
He was out of prison and touring again with the Grateful Dead.
My cousin was in with these people for years before he moved north to be a dope grower in Sonoma county.
Needless to say it took nearly 20 hours to cross the San Mateo bridge and navigate the 100 miles home to Modesto. Downright adventurous.
Looking at that makes me wonder what an archeologist might determine about our culture. How would he interpret?
Makes me think of the Mayen culture and are we even close to interpreting that culture right? The artists might have all been high on fermented palm wine.
visions of the sort of thing you see after ingesting LSD
I don’t believe Owsley ever got busted for acid. He got in trouble for amphetamine manufacturing, but as I mentioned he sued and got all his chemistry making materials stuff back.
It looks a lot like these guys were on the payroll, or at least the authorities looked the other way.
>Colors?
>What do they sound like?
Chocolate
These pics bring back some very weird memories.
Man. Made it to middle age.
Cool.
Late 60’s...5x20’s...Now I remember. Zowie.
Yeee Haaaa...
Man oh man...I remember a few of those, zippy the pinhead, Mr Bill. Saw them a few times but never took any then one night a friend handed me some window pane while I was already plenty wasted on tequila...boy howdy...I really don’t remember much but that’s due to the tequila. 14 shots in 20 minutes is not a good idea...
I rarely got that way but did watch the Mahogany Rush “Strange Universe” album cover come to life one night, purple microdot. Usually it was the more mundane stuff like walls breathing, a friend’s face looking like a pumpkin...
Don’t remember who said it, but I liked mushrooms a lot better too, organic and a lot more friendly. Didn’t go around burnt to a crispy critter the next day either.
“In late 1967, Stanley’s La Espiral, Orinda, lab was raided by police; he was found in possession of 350,000 doses of LSD and 1,500 doses of STP. His defense was that the illegal substances were for personal use, but he was found guilty and sentenced to three years in prison. The same year, Stanley officially shortened his name to “Owsley Stanley”. After he was released from prison, Stanley resumed working for the Grateful Dead as their live sound engineer. “
LSD was illegal in California in 1966, at the Federal level in 1968.
He got out of prison in 1970.
His FIRST bust was in 1965. Cops were looking for speed, found only LSD. It was legal everywhere then. All charges dropped, equipment returned.
He has never revealed who first taught him to make it, or how he was able to develop a process for 99.99% purity. But he claims to have mentored “nearly 10 others” in the process. He was a UC Berkley student in 1963 before dropping out.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Owsley_Stanley
Agreed.
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