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The Story Behind Sydney’s ‘Eternity’ Graffiti
​Kaushik Patowary, AmusingPlanet

For over twenty five years, from 1930 to 1956, the people of Sydney woke up each day to a one-word sermon—”Eternity”—handwritten in yellow crayon on footpaths, train station platforms, and perimeter walls lining the city’s many walkways and streets. Each day a fresh batch of graffiti rendered in beautiful copperplate lettering style  would appear at places where there weren’t any the previous night. Somehow, for twenty five years, a mysterious figure had managed to sneak into the city every night and leave his presence on the city’s walls and sidewalks. It attracted the ire of Sydney City Council at first, but as the weeks become months, and the months became years, the “Eternity” graffiti became an iconic symbol of the city. Pedestrians stepped around and over the words, and street sweepers and cleaners left the elegant writings untouched.

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...it is a beautiful night out there in Los Angeles (Soul Coughing). A recent quick trip to Hollywood this past weekend means a batch of stencils from LA, with two thrown in from the gracious BeneRegoef. Since LA has billboards the size of skyscrapers, we are not surprised that most of the stencils we discovered were ads for music releases and other products. There were some creative ones thrown in, especially a utility box painted by Ricardo Tomasz near the Hollywood Bowl. For such a quick trip, Hollywood sidewalks have more that stars on them.

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Today is the day to ask those you love if you have a plan. It can be for hurricanes, ICE raids, or tornadoes. Here in San Francisco, the 1906 earthquake destroyed a huge portion of the City on April 18. Three huge fires destroyed even more and about 3,000 died from the disaster.

Have a plan! Discuss with room-mates, loved ones, coworkers. There's a disaster kit just down the hall from here. If you feel a large earthquake, get under something and hold on.

With the serious part done, click on through to some recent SF/415 stencil photos.

• Divisadero St.
• Fillmore St. (thanks, EG)
• Financial District
• Mission District (thanks, Josiah)
• Sunset Dunes
• Protest signs
• Tenderloin/Van Ness

Frankie Says.... Sock it to me biscuits, now!

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‘They act with total impunity’: Paris city hall declares war on graffiti vandals 
Officials promise to track down and prosecute those who ‘tag’ city’s historic monuments, statues and grand buildings 

Kim Willsher for The Guardian (LINK), April 17, 2025 

In Paris’s central Place de la République, the magnificent lions at the feet of the statue of Marianne are once again covered in graffiti. 

Along the nearby Boulevard Saint-Martin – part of the Grands Boulevards that bisect the north of the city – the trunk of every plane tree has been crudely sprayed with a name. 

The front of majestic stone apartment buildings, some dating back more than 200 years, are similarly “tagged” with stylised initials or names. So are the benches, flower boxes, front doors, post boxes and the plinth under the bust of the half British 19th-century playwright Baron Taylor. In fact, anything that does not move has been tagged. 

Now Paris city hall has declared war on the vandals and promised to track them down, prosecute and seek fines for some of the estimated €6m (£5.1m) of damage they cause every year. 

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Protecting Art in the Street (Dokument Press) explains, with words and images, how copyright laws apply to street art and graffiti, and how they can be of help to creators within these artistic communities. Knowledge about these issues does matter. There has recently been a spike in legal actions or complaints against corporations and individuals that have tried to exploit commercially street artworks without the artists’ consent; and more importantly without sharing with them any profit. Also, legal actions have been brought by street artists to fight destruction of their pieces.

By adopting a simple language, Protecting Art in the Street constitutes an easy-to-understand guide aimed at navigating street artists and graffiti writers through otherwise difficult and intricate legal issues concerning the protection of their artistic outputs.

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Thanks to: Amanda; BeneRegoef; cattywampus08; LinuxLaser; Louniki; Josiah

Spinning: Clipping "Dead Channel Sky"

• AR Argentina
• AT Austria
• Banksy
• C215
• ES Spain
• FR Paris
• GR Greece
• Stencils in media
• IT ITaly

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What better way to ride this week's chaos than with some artist-credited stencils and some serious live space rock flows from legendary Hawkwind? Ride the waves like the Silver Surfer!

• C215 gets it
• Eclair is still hustling
• Eon75's pattern cut outs continue
• fnnch's AI or Not project
• Supercreate on another utility box
• 1947 French art stencils

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West Coast :: Left Coast :: Best Coast (free jazz by Trane in Japan)

• Anti-Trump in Chinatown
• Hummingbirds appear on Geary St.
• BeneRegoef does LA
• fnnch does AI
• Josiah snaps a cheeky one in the Mission

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Go to the de Young's site for tickets and images. Show up until 6 July, 2025.

In the final decades of a prolific career, modern artist Henri Matisse (1869–1954) took up book illustration. This exhibition celebrates our 2024 acquisition of Jazz, Matisse’s 1947 artist book on the circus and theater. Jazz includes 20 color stencil prints (pochoirs) of popular subjects on these themes, from horses to ringmasters. The prints were created using the artist’s lively paper cutouts, what Matisse called “drawing with scissors.” Published by the innovative Greek publisher Tériade (Stratis Eleftheriadis), it is considered the pinnacle of Matisse’s graphic art. This presentation offers the rare chance to see the unbound works from Jazz in conversation with other Matisse artist books from our collection.

About the First Plate: Le Clown

Using abstracted forms, Matisse begins Jazz with a motif that was popular in nineteenth-century European and American visual culture: a clown standing on a stage, enticing passersby to enter the circus. Above and below the figure, the white lines that stand out boldly against the vibrant blue could reference people in a crowd or lights illuminating the stage. The serpentine black shape against an electric-yellow backdrop might stand as a banner advertising the performance.

For more details on this book, check out Art Gallery NSW's photos and specs.

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Meet Ian The Meow, The Cat That Reminds San Francisco to “Be Nice.”
broke-ass stuart

If you regularly walk around San Francisco, chances are you’ve met Ian The Meow – the cute cat that politely reminds passersby to “be nice” But few people have been lucky enough to find the elusive cat and score an interview.

Luckily for me, I am one of those few.

Ian, a lot of people want to know, are you from San Francisco or somewhere else?

“I was born in Astoria, Queens, NYC. The cat was born in 2008 in the UK. Technically Ian is an immigrant. But San Francisco’s signature overcast and fog reminded me of home.”