Blotter artwork emerged from the mid to late 1960's as a way to conceal illicit LSD. At the time that LSD, or acid, possession was criminalized, the amount of penalty was based on weight. The preferred method of storing acid was to create it in liquid form and soak it into foil wrapped sugar cubes. But by using paper instead of the cubes a greater savings in weight occured, not to mention that it became easier to send surreptitiously through the mail.

In fact, through the postal service, acid flowed from the west coast (primarily San Francisco) to the East Coast where it had been, but not in large quantity. Certainly not enough to supply the ever-increasing amount of people that wanted to try it now that it had acheived such incredible notoriety. The acid would be soaked into blank sheets of blotter paper (the better to absorb it) and sent in bulk to the East Coast, where it would be perforated into small squares and sold for up to five dollars per dose. It wasn't long before law enforcement caught on to this ruse and some further concealment had to be considered.

Through the necessity of subterfuge came the invention of blotter art. By using sheets that contained artwork, the acid could be safely mailed and transported anywhere as a legitimate art print. When it reached its destination, the receiver would perforate it by hand and then sell the sheets to smaller dealers who would eventually break it up into individual hits.

AS LSD production increased, unscrupulous chemists would cut corners or create something else completely. Some would water down the strength of the acid they produced or add other chemicals to change the user's experience. Chemists who cared about their customers, or at least wanted to distance themselves from inferior product, created unique artwork by which their unique formula was known. Often this artwork included small bits that repeated so that the end user could identify the source of the original sheet. (You may be familiar with the oft-referred to line from Woodstock, "Stay away from the brown acid.")

In the early 90's Mark McCloud, an artist from San Francisco, promoted the artwork from the sheets as a form of folk art and should be saved as part of our collective heritage. His resulting collection has toured the world, even being shown in the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Mark was also arrested twice by local authorities who could not believe that his sheets were not a cover for an LSD distribution ring. He beat the charges by having his artwork tested to prove that it was devoid of LSD. He now curates the Museum of Illegal Imagery in San Francisco.

A decade later Alex Pearlstein noted that much of the blotter art in existence was in fact stolen and the artists received nothing for their work. He enlisted the help of Tony Cerra and Rev. Samuel to found tripatourium.com to comission new pieces of this unusual and exciting artform.

Tripatourium's stable of artists read like a who's who of contemporary art and illustration, including: Frank Kozik, Trevor Brown, EMEK, Mark Mothersbaugh, Alex Grey, Jason Cooper, Naoto Hattori, Paul Booth, and Rev. Samuel,. The result is a portfolio of limited edition signed and unsigned prints at reasonable prices so that more people can own and collect this unique and breathtaking form of art.