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.
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We have continued reviewing and revising the Stencil Archives, still in the USA Artists zones. Today, we feature artists in the K to L part of the alphabet. 1980s work from K Ruby, a large revision for Kim Ubransoule, the CMYK work of John Koleszar, 2003 work from my hometown via Krime, Left of 88 and M Covenant's stencils, Louie Valentine's political stencils, and career-spanning pics from the legend, Logan Hicks.
Does this stencil offend you? How about one with an incel message? A burning car? Trump as a clown? Pornographic images? Anti-Christian?
The Stencil Archive has images that may offend, and that's okay. Why? Because free speech is important to us. So important, that we do not always agree with the stencils that people feel compelled to make and paint in public. But we will post them here on the site.
Having the freedom to stencil what one believes seems like a given, but remember that Iranian street artists were held and persecuted for their public protest stencils. Our research for the "Stencil Nation" book pulled up examples of people who risked their lives to oppose Nazi occupation and Soviet oppression. Monty Python's humorous riff on protest graffiti in "Life of Brian" is real. And that movie stands out as offensive to some, but hilarious to others. Freedom of speech and protest can feel tenuous, which is why it should be deeply held as an inalienable right for everyone.
Whenever freedom of speech (and press) issues come up in mainstream media, Rush's less-known song "Witch Hunt" comes to mind:
Quick to judge
Quick to anger
Slow to understand
Ignorance and prejudice
And fear, walk hand in hand
We note this on our Submit FAQ, but it is worth repeating that few stencils do not make it on this site. They are most likely too pornographic or directly racist and derogatory. Right-wing icons? Yes. An incel stencil that is directly derogatory towards a certain population? No. Left-wing anti-police messages? Yes. Direct messages inciting copycat Luigi Magione actions? No.
We cannot always appease everyone, and that's fine. Once again, free speech doesn't equal total appeasement. Unlike the current atmosphere here in the U.S., different opinions should be allowed. Let's hope this current chill coming out of Washington, DC thaws.
As for those who are thin-skinned and have closed minds:
The righteous rise
With burning eyes
Of hatred and ill-will
Madmen fed on fear and lies
To beat and burn and kill
(Neil Peart, 1980)
Continuing our tour through the updated Stencil Archives, we visit the artists who begin their names with "J". There are some stencil legends in this round: Josh MacPhee, John Fekner, Joe Iurato, and Joe Boruchow. Then we have Jim, an activist in Knoxville who pulled out all his work during a visit around 2009. Let's not forget Joshua Wingartner and Jonathan Wakuda Fischer. Good stuff for the 10th letter of the English alphabet.
Making progress on the USA artist archive updates. So much progress, that we are behind in letting you know about it. Today, let us take a stroll through several archives in the G, H, and I realms: Gustav gets humorously political (smaller-sized image files means he was on here years ago), Hanksy (Adam Himebauch) made a splash with his pop culture mash up stencils in the 2010s, and imapest also submitted early images of their cartoon-style work on background patters.
Updates I, J, and K coming sooooooon.....
Mos Art, je suis un un artiste peintre lillois passionné d'art urbain. J'ai commencé par le graffiti dans les années 2000, puis petit à petit je me suis intéressé à la technique du pochoir que j'utilise principalement dans mes créations désormais, pour moi le pochoir c'est comme le poker : "il faut 2 minutes pour comprendre le principe et une vie pour s'améliorer."
Staying busy these past several weeks. Still trying to catch up to all the new images that need to be uploaded. Here's another round for the artists in the Stencil Archive
During this round of updates, we got to visit with Crusty Punk, Douglas Miles, Faile, Fidget, and Get Up. Some of these archives are new enough to not need revising, while a few were already updated. Still a great time wandering through all these photos. Dongo submitted back in 2003. Fio sent pics in 2004. Facebook was not mainstream then, and Flickr was just getting started. This site, with Stencil Revolution, were trying to keep the photos flowing back then. Today, we proudly keep this site going as an alternative to data-sucking socials; an ad-free island with zero marketing. Just like it was back in 2003.
We have had the continued Archive filename upgrade project on the back burner but we have not forgotten about it. Filenames are updated with more information and less underscores. Typos are corrected and sometimes images are moved if misarchived. The final stretch, with USA and European artists as the last sections to revise, is still down the road. During Peat EYEZ's recent visit, he asked us how many artists archives were on the site. We guessed a generic "hundreds" answer. Looking at this last stretch of revisions, there are 213 USA and 306 European artist archives to go through. Maybe several dozens of those are already upgraded, but now the work has begun!
Always nice to look at the older archives while going through this process. Chris Stain, sometimes collaborating with Scout, was an early artist that got on the Stencil Archive. Bob Patterson was one of the first artists on the site and gets a rare archive with only two images (the general rule is three stencils will start an artist archive). Borf made a large splash about 20 years ago, specifically for getting arrested and going to jail as a teenage vandal in the Washington, DC area. We have gotten into the Cs for USA artist archives, and promise to try to have some more updates throughout the fall.
Recent travels into the Alps wasn't all trails in high altitudes. Where there were city and village walks, there were stencil discoveries. Enjoy this fresh upload from:
