Wes Wilson

As the 1960s counterculture gained momentum, artists wanted to create works that would replicate the altered states of consciousness that many people were experiencing.

Printmakers in San Francisco, like Victor Moscoso and Wes Wilson, began incorporating Dayglo inks into their promotional materials for music venues like the Fillmore.

Artists placed contrasting fluorescent colors next to each other to create a vibrant effect.

Basically, when you put complementary or opposite colors next to each other repeatedly, it can overwhelm the viewer's eye and can make things seem to move or vibrate.

So that's how we have been talking about it.

The Haight Street Art Center show is kind of, not to denigrate it, but it's more of a straight art exhibition with lots of original works of art that were turned into posters from Rick Griffin and Wes Wilson and everybody else you can imagine.

When you get to the Haight Street Arts Center at 215 Haight, and we're open Thursday through Sunday, noon to six, and it's free.

You walk through our doorway and around our doorway, like I think it's like 17 feet high, is a mural that Dennis Larkins kindly did for us.

We had so many pieces that we wanted to show and finite space.

And so we decided in the epicenter gallery, we would rotate know kind of some key pieces in and out so you know the first round for example we were given permission to show the original artwork for the hawaiian oxomoxoa poster you know that drawing and for the second round we showed the original drawing for that edmund sullivan did in 1900 that became an etching in the book that stanley mouse and alton kelly were thumbing through and they were like oh look at that That's Grateful Dead.

You know, right now, we have walls within Epicenter that are devoted to Randy Tootin's work and Rick Griffin's work and Wes Wilson's work.

And then another wall that kind of starts off with a drawing of what became a psychedelic poster and then shows kind of how quickly the aesthetic morphed from psychedelia to surrealism.

Add Shep.

Shep, Craig, and Wes Wilson.

But Wes is number one.

Then it brings you all back together.

What? I thought this was, like, a non-debatable thing that we all just saw.

Even with all the Wes and Amanda stuff, people, like, tracking them.

I'm like, they might as well stay on the show if you guys are gonna tell us their every move.

No, I don't think they should stay on the show.

[laughs]

No, to be clear, I don't think they should stay on the show.

And I don't wanna see Wes do anything.

[laughs]