BlotterBarn.com is an online archive of LSD Blotter art. If I've already lost you there I'm not surprised, even in the world of drugs an 'acid trip' is for the majority of stoners and the like, a rarity. There are good reasons not to take acid lightly. Lysergic acid diethylamide was first synthesized by Albert Hofmann in 1938 from ergot, which is essentially a blight of grain farmers. Introduced by Sandoz Laboratories, under the name Delysid, the drug was first used in 1947 for psychiatric purposes, though I doubt with much result.

Asides the usual associations with bands like the Beetles, and rock guitar legend Jimi Hendrix, actors including Goldie Horn and Cary Grant, and singer and performer Barbara Streisand have taken a 'trip' from time to time. You'd probably be surprised at just how many creative people in the late 20th Century have partaken in LSD, unless you're into your drugs, then you probably have more examples to offer. I'm not trying to legitimise the drug, I'm simply giving the uninitiated a little background on what is probably the strangest member of a vast family of narcotics, bar DMT which although I have only read about its effects, as far as I can tell is as weird as it gets.

Originally LSD was sold as liquid in small bottles, there was an extreme danger of consuming too much and soon small squares of blotter paper soaked in the chemical were used instead. As the acid culture grew so did the range of LSD available, microdots, window panes, white lightning, Californian sunrise amongst the slightly variant trips available. Some such as window panes were in fact small pieces of gelatin rather than paper, however many of the more traditional 'brands' continue use blotting paper to this day.

Blotter Barn offers a unique inside peek at a rare and relatively recent subculture, one which has for the main part stood alone since the early 70s. A generation of deep thinkers and acid casualties, some with clinical mental illnesses walk the world, some producing great art, literature, and music, others banging their heads against a padded wall. Acid offers the richest rewards of self enlightenment, but this rite of passage is tainted by the fear of chemical imbalance, toxic mixes, and the inevitable 'bad trip'

The acid generation all have 'acid stories' as do I, some funny, some strange, some terrifying, which are quietly and sometimes secretly shared with others of like mind, though this tradition of hallucinogenic oral history is being lost to a new generation of smart drug producers and users. The future is all about the high, the past is filled with navel gazers, the art of the trip has been lost, with little more to show than the ephemera of the psychedelic age.

Blotter art is a highly persuasive form of outsider art, literally outside of society, on the fringe of both consciousness and sanity. These near microscopic images represent levels and areas of intoxication, self questioning, perception changing event, and brutal deconstruction that the experience is shared with but a very few of the greatest poets, painters and philosophers of times past.

Take a trip to BlotterBarn.com

This post is tagged acid, blotter barn, blotterbanr.com, L.S.D, Lysergic acid diethylamide, outsider art, trip