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This specific piece is the highly collectible "Leary Puddle" original blotter art (cataloged as OBA-1.107 or OBA-1.106). Printed in the late 1990s by legendary counterculture collector and curator Mark McCloud, this design features a repeating grid of tiny minimalist profile silhouettes of Timothy Leary. The Design Structure: The sheet is divided by a standard 30x30 perforation pattern to yield 900 individual tabs. Each four-tab segment captures a quadrant of Leary's profile, a masterfully understated choice compared to the loud, neon psychedelic motifs typical of the medium. ,The Fine Art Context: Sheets like this were famously brought to Leary during his final months in 1996 to be autographed. By signing them alongside other key counterculture figures like Ram Dass, Leary purposefully subverted the drug's illicit street identity, helping transition vanity blotter paper into a recognized medium of underground fine art.Because it lacks the bright inks or obvious iconography of later pop-culture prints, its clean, systemic grid layout holds deep historical significance among vintage psychotropic design collectors. |
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