Welcome to the new/updated site! The Archives and search function may look a bit different, but it is still the same good time. Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.

Donate any amount.

Other ways to support this site (beyond submitting pics, videos, exhibit info, etc.):

Just Updated the Submit FAQ

Been a while since we have looked over our Submit page, complete with fun FAQs to get you all hyped up to submit photos to us. Some of the details needed to be updated for sure, and here are a few:

  • We are now posting photos that are about 8-9 inches (20-23 cm) at widest side.
  • 72 or 96 PPI preferred density.
  • Changed language to make it more obvious that we'll take any size image and reformat it if needed. However, .png files least preferred format.
  • Who burns CDs anymore? :P It's all about the cloud.
  • Fixed some grammar and formatting, etc.

While social media sites pull all the great images in larger heaps than we'd ever imagine, we got curious about how their Terms of Use are worded with regards to the images on their site. Instagram is the current go-to for uploading stencil art photos. We even have our own small stream, which is very selective precisely because of Meta's terms of use.

Stefan Winterle says goodbye to Colab Gallery

Stefan Winterle

After 14 successful years: Stefan Winterle says goodbye to Colab Gallery   

Stefan Winterle (his Stencil Archive, and his website) says goodbye after 14 years as curator of the Colab Gallery in Weil am Rhein. During this time he curated 25 exhibitions with over 250 artists from Europe, the USA and Latin America.  

Nach 14 erfolgreichen Jahren:
Stefan Winterle verabschiedet sich von der Colab Gallery

Stefan Winterle verabschiedet sich nach 14 Jahren als Kurator der Colab Gallery in Weil am Rhein. Während dieser Zeit kuratierte er 25 Ausstellungen mit über 250 Künstlern und Künstlerinnen aus Europa, den USA und Lateinamerika.

"I am grateful to have had the opportunity to inspire a growing audience for graffiti and street art culture." In 2010, Stefan Winterle took over the artistic direction of the gallery, founded in 2006, from his mentor and friend Sigi von Koeding a.k.a. Dare, who died at an early age. Stefan Winterle consistently developed his concept of presenting graffiti culture in exhibitions. Discovering talents and inviting them to the Colab Gallery was an essential element of success. Another element was the goal of making the Colab Gallery a sought-after address internationally. More than 250 artists stand for this success, some of whom have graced the walls of the Colab Gallery several times. 

"The quality of the works was more important to me than names," says Stefan Winterle, who consistently followed his credo. Thus, Colab Gallery can claim to be setting the tone in European competition. "We are a gallery and not a museum," as a graduate in business administration, Stefan Winterle also had to consider the economic side of the gallery.

For him, this meant building up a professional team. That is why Colab Gallery today can also be called an art house.

The management and the colleagues of Colab Gallery thank Stefan Winterle for his commitment. His successor has already been appointed. A separate announcement will be made shortly. 

And why is Stefan Winterle leaving the gallery? "Fourteen years in a young art direction is a long time. Many projects are waiting in my studio, which I could otherwise only realize between exhibitions. These works are now my full devotion." I look forward to that.

New Uploads - A Bit of This...

...and a bit of that!

2 hens
Glad these two don't lay eggs!

Thanks to: Dylan Pitman; Josiah; Lynn Ray; Jeremy Novy; Brooklyn Street Art; @Louniki_; @radicalgraffiti; @regoef; @mensch_huis; trifluoracetic-acid; FICKxDINGERZ

Spinning: Foo Fighters, The Chieftans; 85 Maiden, 85 Dead


>NEW< Connecticut

>NEW< Savior el Mundo (NYC)

>NEW< Gary Taxali (CA)

Edmonton CA finally represents!

Black Rock City porta-potty art

New York City

Emeryville, CA

Joe Iurato and Logan Hicks

Praxis

Italy (just one)

Jaune

JPS

Pobel

Here and there in SF

Valencia St. (just one)

The Tenderloin

Revamped the Burning Man Archive

BRC 2013
Violence, humor, and unsafe conditions always on display at Burning Man (2013).

Stencil Archive's Burning Man - Black Rock City archive has been cleaned up and updated!

I don't head out to Black Rock City anymore, but I do enjoy following the fun every year. I know that Jeremy Novy and fnnch go out there to make art and have fun, and I can only assume that stencils are still all over the place at Burning Man. My first time out, I was unprepared for my usual urban habit of snapping pics of stencils. My camera evolved over the preceding visits: disposable film > borrowed digital with memory card > old iPhone; but I managed to catch stencils during my wanderings. Every year I attended. And I started cutting and painting my own out there as well.

After helping a few first timers this year, and following the fun again online, I took a look at my BRC archive here on Stencil Archive and realized that it was a bit of a mess. I thought I'd move a few photos, reorder a bit more, and call it done, but I ended up renaming dozens of images. I then decided to reduce to my preferred size and add the logo watermark. While I was doing all this work, I have renamed the archive for Nevada and BRC. 

Enjoy the new and improved Burning Man stencil love. And, like a DPW stencil said in 2006: If "you're not dirty enough," then you aren't having enough fun out there. :)

SF 2023 State of Graffiti Tagging

How SF is aiding businesses clean persistent graffiti
SF Examiner (Link, with maps and graphs)

A parklet, a storefront, a billboard.

Graffiti pops up across The City seemingly as fast as it’s removed.

The City launched a pilot program to help businesses clean up graffiti last November in a press conference that featured Mayor London Breed painting over graffiti scrawled over a vacant brewery in the Inner Sunset.

Less than a year later, graffiti still abounds in not only the Inner Sunset but other San Francisco neighborhoods as well.

The $2 million “courtesy graffiti abatement” program was funded for a second consecutive year in The City budget adopted by legislators and signed by Breed last month. It employs workers who will respond to businesses that report tagging on their buildings.