I just pulled up this old HappyFeet Communique email, dated April 2, 2002. Thought it would be fun to repost, especially since I haven't really celebrated this site's 10th Anniversary.

Prior to putting the photos on this web address, my blog www.happyfeettravels.org hosted Photoshop-created albums of the early archives (some photos from that era, tiny postage stamps to save size, still exist on to this day). It got too big for the blog, so I moved it over here.

I new stencil mural just went up along the Wiggle (a popular bike route) in San Francisco's Lower Haight neighborhood. The specific corner is Haight and Pierce. I bike by the mural often, so saw it in progress. Todd Hanson happened to meet the folks prior to my meeting them. After taking some in-progress photos, I caught Kate at the wall with another person. They were adding some of the last stencils to the bottom party running along Haight St. She said that the main portrait is of Kenya's Nobel laureate Wangari Maathai. All the other folks in the mural are locals from the Lower Haight neighborhood. And Kate says that she had help on the wall, especially the free spray parts.

I moved my first three photos over to a new Archive for Kate. I went ahead and added the nine new photos of the finished mural to the archive.

Romanowski and myself appear to be the only folks that stencil murals. Glad to see a new one in the mix!

>NEW< http://www.stencilarchive.org/archives/index.php/San_Francisco/Artists_…

Mayor: We’ll Arrest and Prosecute Park Vandals

By: Rigoberto Hernandez | June 19, 2012 – 3:24 pm (link to posting)

The vandals of Dolores Park and Potrero Del Sol have gained a new powerful enemy: Mayor Ed Lee.

Today, during the mayor’s question time at the Board of Supervisors meeting, Lee promised to take steps to curb the vandalism that has hit city parks recently.

The Helen Diller playground at Dolores Park, for example, was vandalized just days after opening in April. Vandals marked the playground with graffiti and removed six of the 14 metal keys from the xylophone, according to the San Francisco Chronicle.

“Crimes of vandalism and graffiti are an assault on our public resources,” Lee said. “It’s shameful.”

Here is how the mayor promised to curb the vandalism:

• The Parks and Recreation Department is working with food vendors and bicycle rental companies to offer “happy park uses.”
• The San Francisco Police Department will hire nine park patrol officers (citywide.)
• The police chief will tell his officers to enforce property crimes.
• “Once arrested, [the DA] will work to prosecute these criminals to the full extent of the law,” Lee said.
• Work with judges who dismiss vandalism cases and educate them on the importance of prosecution. “I see far too many [cases] dismissed,” he said.
• A graffiti specialist is currently developing leads to apprehend the vandals.
• Citizens are also encouraged to participate in the city’s graffiti reward program.

Police are investigating after a vandal defaced an original Pablo Picasso painting at a Texas museum last week and it happened to be captured on video by another museum-goer.

A grainy cellphone video on YouTube shows a man in a suit spray-painting a stencil of a bullfighter killing a bull on the 1929 Picasso painting "Woman in a Red Armchair" at Houston's Menil Collection museum. The man also wrote the Spanish word "Conquista" (meaning to conquer) before he fled.

More great chances to click through and discover the broader, international stencil community (please let me know if any of these links take you to error pages, dead sites, etc.):

ARTISTS

COLLECTIONS

SERVICES

RESEARCH