The Psychedelic Sixties

In June 2000, I participated in a tag art exchange.

An art swap or exchange: This is something coordinated among artists. Each artist sends a number of pieces of art to someone, and the recipient takes out one item for him/herself, and distributes the rest to the other participants. Each participant receives a collection of art by others, totalling one less than the artist sent.

I sent 11 nearly-identical tags to an artist in Australia, with return postage, and she will return 10 different tags to me.

click on image to see it larger

The requirements for this exchange were: Any tag design representing the "Psychedelic Sixties," with at least one rubber stamp used.

I made an accordion-pleated book from rice paper, with 18 pages in it. On each page, I collaged at least two photos (harvested from the Internet) representing different aspects of the Sixties. The photos included: LBJ, Martin Luther King, the Rolling Stones, the Beatles, Ed Sullivan, Joan Baez, Janis Joplin, Timothy Leary, Alvin Lee (Ten Years After), Jimi Hendrix, Roger Daltry (The Who), the Grateful Dead, Kent State, marches on Washington, Woodstock, Further (the bus), Star Trek, Saturday morning shows: Gumby, Snagglepuss, Jetsons, and the Banana Splits, and finally the Crumb "Keep on Truckin'" image.

inside the book, two of 18 pages

The cover of the book is teal green card stock, with the title, "The Psychedelic Sixties" over a fractal image similar to the "acid trip" art of that era.

I hand bound the book with teal green embroidery floss, attaching the book to the tag as part of the binding. The tag has a peace symbol in purple above the book, and green grassy-looking stuff below it.

On the back of the tag, over the binding threads, I glued a short commentary about the sixties, by Abbie Hoffman.

Abbie and I never saw eye-to-eye on the means to revolution, but this particular passage confirms his genius with words:

We are here to make a better world.

No amount of rationalization or blaming can preempt the moment of choice each of us brings to our situation here on this planet. The lesson of the 60's is that people who cared enough to do right could change history.

We didn't end racism but we ended legal segregation.

We ended the idea that you could send half-a-million soldiers around the world to fight a war that people do not support.

We ended the idea that women are second-class citizens.

We made the environment an issue that couldn't be avoided.

The big battles that we won cannot be reversed.

We were young, self-righteous, reckless, hypocritical, brave, silly, headstrong and scared half to death.

And we were right.

--Abbie Hoffman

I mailed 11 of these tags to the Australian artist coordinating this exchange, at the end of June 2000.