Welcome to the new/updated site, with revisions happening daily! Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo, video, links, and exhibit info submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.

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Say it Vah-lin-cee-ahhh

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From 2004, someone on Valencia St. gets psychedelic with the Stones logo.

If anyone rides the MUNI Fillmore 22 bus, they will hear the computer call one street with an odd pronunciation. No one calls the always-interesting Mission District street "Vah-len-chuh", but there are probably tourists and newly arrived citizens that will do so until corrected by a cranky San Franciscan. 

Over this past weekend, tired Stencil Archive fingers updated the Valencia St. archive, including the long-running DAP wall. The fingers stayed itchy and wandered to the Clarion Alley archive too, home to one of the first painted alleys in SF and ground zero for what is now known as The Mission School. The fingers walked up 18th and revised The Castro archive, including Upper Market, Hayes Valley, and Octavia Street. To finish up, Eddie Colla's archive is all good for the new wave version of the site. Does anybody know where Eddie's been?!

More Updates in Euro-zones

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Just updated the legendary Miss.Tic's Stencil Archive.

Before we head into some more San Francisco-based archive updating, a few friendly submissions got the ball rolling on some more European Stencil Archive updates. Today's updates also include Polish legend M-city as well as the late and great Miss.Tic. Sucht was pulled from the recent Germany archive update, and Nick Walker has been added thanks to the social streams. We cannot remember our 2009-2012 Polish stencil photo connection, but most of the photos in this archive are thanks to him. OK, back to work on some SF updating!

Germany Archive Updated and More

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Berln, 1995 - One of the first stencil photos taken for the future Stencil Archive project.

Updating the Stencil Archive for Germany was filled with pleasant memories of wandering the streets of Berlin - one of the capitals of Stencil Nation - over the years, snapping photos and leaving a few stencils and stickers behind. Even with all the gentrification taking place in Berlin, stencils still run and appear. Going back to 1995, before any idea of documenting stencils and creating Stencil Archive germinated, the above Brecht poem graced the wall of/near the Reichstag. Three stories tall, and maybe our first-ever snapped stencil photo, the power of using stencils was organically felt! Years later, just about 700 Germany photos run on this site. This does not include the 100s in the recently-updated Hamburg Archive. Germany's stencil nation is serious!

Topping off this weekend's update, here are a few new photos (one for DE) from the EU zones. Thanks for submissions: BeneRegoef, Rob C., Jeremy Novy, @Louniki_, and @radicalgraffiti

Italy Stencil Archive Updated

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Critical Mass stencils in Bologna, IT (2011)

With over 400 images, the Italy Stencil Archive has been updated for the recent new wave redesign. About 5-6 new images were also recently uploaded, pulled for the social streams, thanks to rad accounts like @Louniki_ and @radicalgraffiti. We are forever grateful!

5 July Artists Upload Special

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Thanks for the location tip, Banksy Hates Me.

Dropping some artist photos this post-Fourth Friday.

Fresh Mexico Uploads

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Over 80 stencil images from Mexico have been added to the Mexico Stencil Archive.

Heading into Guadalajara from the airport a few weeks ago, the taxi occupants became sharp-eyed observers of the moving walls outside the car. As we got closer to our temporary Stencil Archive HQ, the seen stencils became more common. And just across the street from our lodgings, an empty building covered with graffiti. And stencils. Recent women's march(es) had gone down the Av. Miguel Hidalgo y Costilla, painting walls and sidewalks with messages, images, and proof that stencils, as a tool of protest, give voice to those that cut their ideas out. The Colonia America district did not disappoint. Other stencils were found here and there in Tlaquepaque and the City Center - even in Calvillo, Aguascalientes - but our discovery team did not have to walk too far to fill up the camera roll!

Some Refreshed Archives

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Rediscovered image of Scott Williams journals (ph Carrie Galbraith, 2004)

After having my own site blocked by my internet provider (firewalls must work!) while working hard on the site, time for breakfast. But first, a few back-end updates:

  • Scott Williams' Stencil Archive updates are complete. While double-checking work, we realized that about 100 photographs were not given credit to Carrie Galbraith. That is corrected, and Carrie's photos - dating back to the early 1990s Carmanic Convergence - have their own Archive. A dozen photos from Carrie did not get uploaded back in 2006, and that has been corrected as well.
  • Jeremy Novy's social media link to that Bloomberg article about Atlanta accepting graffiti got things moving to update the Georgia Stencil Archive. Then there was last night's "debate". And Soul Coughing just announced a new tour, when the only time we have seen this band was in Little Five Points at The Point in 1994. I guess Atlanta, GA is on our minds. No matter what went down last night, we had a good time looking at early 2000s photos from Krog St. and the L5P. And we scored tix for Soul Coughing in September!

OK. Hangry now. Must eat cereal.