Since 2002 (updated often), your old-school website for all things stencils. Photo, video, links, and exhibit info submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.
On the walls! 8/21 to 9/10, SF, CA :: CELLspace PopUp :: IG :: Invite
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Sometimes uploading new images to Stencil Archive is smooth and easy! Thanks to Amanda for continuing to snap stencil pics and submitting to us for all to enjoy. We get emails with the photos attached, then rename and resize. Boom, on the site. The one from Colombia is off the socials, so thanks to folks that also share in those worlds.
Jane Verma, one of the metal artists that designed and fabricated the CELLspace Metal Mural back in 2009, just sent us a stitched photo of the whole work, along with the 2009 Stencilada panels installed beneath the planter boxes. While working various activist jobs as well as continuing to promote the "Stencil Nation" book project, Russell Howze got a call from the CELL Metal Shop folks about their idea of installing stencil art under their new mural. What a great idea! Jane and the Metal Shop crew helped coordinate with the artists, pay for the panel shipping, and organize a fun opening day on the wall. The call was sent out to anyone who wanted to stop by and lay down a stencil, and this photo looks like it was taken just after that event.
From left to right, the known Stencilada artists are: James Sellier (RIP), Russell Howze with Hugh D'Andrade, Crystal Townsend, Dignidad Rebelde (Jesus Barraza and Melanie Cervantes), John Koleszar, Scott Williams (RIP) with Russell Howze, Tiago Denczuk (wheatpaste to right of door), Peat EYEZ Wollaeger, and Chris Benfield with Russell Howze. Plant Trees gets some respect to the far left, and the artist who sprayed the green and white stencil did not want to give his name during our opening collab party.
In the upcoming Midway Art Gallery exhibit CELLspace PopUp, three surviving panels will be displayed: Hugh and Russell's CELL panel, Koleszar's men working panel, and Scott's troika panel. One of Peat's panels was stolen, the Dignidad Rebelde panel was sold, and the rest did not age well in storage.
This September, the Midway Gallery here in San Francisco, will celebrate the final install of the CELL Metal Mural (it took ten years, and two new fabricated sections, to finish the project) by showing some of the stencil panels that were originally installed under the Metal Mural in 2009. Other early 2000s murals, featuring Icy and Sot, Regan Ha Ha Tamanui, and Peat EYEZ, will also be on the walls, with new works from CELL alums and other CELLspace ephemera. More posts coming soon.
We spent a little bit of time this week dusting off some more older corners of the Stencil Archive's SF Artists piles. Amazing what can be uncovered, like the "Jessie's Girl" spoof stencils that showed up to razz politician Gavin Newsom. If you do not remember, he slept with an aide's wife while going through a divorce with now infamous Kimberly Guilfoyle.
Then there's the gem from a CELLspace artist who got inspired and decided to cut two sets of footsteps in the Mission District. Walk one way, or walk the other....
Finally, there was a moment in the early 2000s where Romanowski had stencils on walls all through the Lower Haight. One wall is still running and full of fun portraits and details that will make you walk up a stranger's steps to get closer.
We ended this week's revisions at Scott Williams (RIP), which we updated after his recent death. There are 100s of photos of Scott's work that you all should visit soon and often!
Still left on the updating route: S-Z SF artists > Europe Artists > the difusor 2007 stencil meeting archives > USA Artists. Still a ways to go, but we have plenty of dusting materials to get us through it.
A battle over this Inner Richmond wall speaks to a very San Francisco crisis
Column: The Green Street Fund's Luke Spray on the tyranny of the gray wall
Luke Spray
May 9, 2025, for SFGate
There’s a battle underway on Clement Street. The battlefield is a plywood wall between 9th and 10th avenues, and it’s attracted a wide array of challengers. Local artists, party promoters and wheatpaste advertisers. Teenage taggers, protesters and walking club enthusiasts. Each takes their shot. But the victor here is always the same: another thick slathering of gray paint.
It’s a gray that’s more relentless than the afternoon fog. A gallery-sized version of photographer Michael Jang’s famous shot of the Golden Gate Bridge’s 50th anniversary was gone so fast I didn’t even get a picture of it — though, amusingly, a small print of it was glued to a wall nearby a few days later. Typical Jang. In between the bouts of gray, the space quickly reverts back to a delightful hodgepodge, a mix of protest statements, comedy night flyers and Converse ads. By contrast, each fresh slathering of gray is monotonous, only seeming to draw attention to what a dead zone the wall creates on an otherwise vibrant section of Clement. Yet this battle isn’t just graffiti vs. the gray; it’s part of a longstanding tussle over San Francisco’s streets that goes back to the 1800s and continues to confound us.
Sunny Sunday here in SF. Before we walk to stencil search and enjoy the day, some photos to share with flowers, brunches, cards, hugs, and all that other Mother stuff....
Falco is a self-taught artist, born in 1998 in Annecy and now based in Paris. Engaged, he challenges conventions and re updates the masterpieces of Art History, transforming public spaces into genuine grounds for expression. His works aim to provoke, challenge, and denounce, while offering, at first sight, a perspective where irony and hope intertwine.
Cinq ans plus tard, peindre dans la rue a évolué en un moyen de contextualiser ses œuvres. C’est l’aboutissement de l’idée, garantissant la cohérence entre ce qu’il souhaite exprimer, le lieu et le moment où il choisit de le faire.
We took a long break from the Stencil Archive updating project. It is a bit too tedious, and hand-crampingly painful, to crank out in one go. The most active Archives have been updated (for this current round: fnnch, Eclair, Eon75, Jeremy Novy), and we do update an Archive if there's a new image to go in. This week focused on "let's make a dent in the San Francisco Stencil Archives", so we took a flashback trip down the years, which included all of our exhibits and art shows. FYI, the image sizes are smaller because hosting size was pricey 20 years ago!
The Stencil Archive-produced Negative Spaces exhibit Archive is updated, along with Russell "Klutch" Short's 2005 SF Vinyl Killers Archive. Negative Spaces inspired Klutch to start the Vinyl Killers project, and Stencil Archive was at the SF opening with our digital camera out. We have already updated Klutch's personal site, but just added text from his online obituary. We also added text and updated obituary text to James Sellier's Archive. James was always a light and fun presence back in those heady "street art" days. We sometimes miss his humor and thoughtful stencil work.
Then we headed over to the SF Artists Archives and started A-Z. This current update's effort ends with the letter K. Some great browsing this week includes Claude Moller, Craig McPhee, Hole in the Head, and Kate DeCiccio.
We're hoping to get through the rest of the SF artist Stencil Archives this spring, and look forward to checking out these dusty corners where some of the artists hit the streets decades ago. After that, the EU zones artist Archives remain the last section of the site to update. New uploads keep happening in real time, so no need to trip backwards to stay fresh. xoxo....
GirlSpit (Seattle, WA) never lets a Computer: Generate an image :: Generate the layers :: Cut A Stencil
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.
