Cannabis art historically resided at the edge of the underground, in the United States and around the world. Although art depicting explicit cannabis themes was widely available in record stores and head shops. the genre languished outside the main stream of the arts world.

Psychadelic art flourished in the poster market, driven in part by affordable printing technologies of the 1960s, and an emerging counterculture. Rick Griffin, Victor Moscoso, Bonnie MacLean, Stanley Mouse, Alton Kelley, and Wes Wilson flooded markets with posters promoting rock-n-roll concerts, inspired by Art Nouveau, Victoriana, Dada, and Pop Art schools. Salvador Dali posters planted the surrealist school in every mall in America. Altered mindsets, as represented by art, were an accepted part of art in commerce. Huka pipes often graced psychadelic themed art, but the presence of smoking paraphernalia doomed any art piece to the margins.

Even the humble cannabis leaf struggled for acceptance. As cannabis art gradually crept into mainstream commerce, the seven-fingered cannabis leaf became the main feature of the genre. Cannabis-leaf pins, cannabis-leaf emboidered hats stood as a statement against marginalization of a widely practiced underground culture.

It's not that the art world was a stranger to marijuana. Although many artists and musicians avoid cannabis for various reasons, marijuana found a safe home in the company of artists. The reluctance of artists to directly represent cannabis culture in their creative work could be a product of the unlawful status of the plant. To represent oneself as an advocate for cannabis risked inviting search warrants, loss of venues and the stigma of being an unlawful drug user. Advocates practiced their culture openly in the sequestered confines of parties, private homes and discrete gatherings.

Legalization of marijuana in several states has changed much of the dynamic of cannabis art. Marijuana art is now a commercial art form. When Oklahoma marijuana laws changed to allow lawful sale of medical marijuana, billboards cropped up boasting creative names of newly hatched dispensaries. In a state that a few short decades earlier had prohibited liquor by the drink, marijuana art was openly displayed without shame or stigma - in a distinctly capitalist context.

Cannabis has long been a mainstay of the pharmacopea of many arts communities. As attitudes change. time will tell how artists choose to represent a species that has provided not only pscyhic repose and inspiration, but was once a primary agricultural crop -- and a leading source of fiber on which art was rendered. Indeed, the term "canvas" -- the cloth on which every famous painting is drawn -- derives from the historic cannabis fiber.

How will artists celebrate emergence of this historic fiber from the margins and the shadows? Artists may recall a century of prohibition with contempt, or may choose to render the story in softer tones, perhaps clouded by surrealist influences that recognize the complexity of the human condition.