Due to a language barrier (Hao speaks broken English and I don't speak any French), StencilArchive.org wrote out a list of questions that a friend of Hao's interpreted into French. His friend then interpreted Hao's answers into English. I have made the best possible effort to clean up the English, but some things would be best left to Hao's own words. In an ideal situation, I'd get to ask him to clarify his phrasing, but it didn't go down that way.

SA: How long have you made stencils?

LH: I started to paint with stencils in 1985.

When Peat Wollaeger sent in his first submission to StencilArchive, I was instantly impressed with his mastery of creating stencils. His colors made the images jump off of the page. His cutting style had its own unique characteristics, and his love for the artform was easily apparant. When I mentioned having an online chat, he got really excited about talking stencils. He even mailed me some pix of the separate color stencils for his newest image, Myrna the SK8 dog, for visual reference. Here's what we discussed early on Super Bowl Sunday.

One of the earliest and most regular contributors to StencilArchive's photo cache just happens to be the farthest away. ECCE (Latin for behold and pronounced A-che) lives in Australia, where stencil art is apparantly beginning to really take off. After doing some research online, and figuring out that we're 17 hours apart, we then coordinated a couple of online chats. Here's what we discussed.