Historical Item

Viking Graffiti in Scotland

Maeshowe's Runes - Viking Graffiti

When Maeshowe was first excavated, in 1861, the chamber's original entrance passage was inaccessible.

So, to allow access, the excavators drove a shaft down through the top of the mound. Once inside, however, they found proof that that they were not the first to have broken into the tomb. The walls of the Stone Age chamber were covered in with runic graffiti.

The 30 inscriptions found in Maeshowe, make it one of the largest, and most famous, collections of runes known in Europe.

According to Orkneyinga saga, over 800 years previously, in the darkness of an Orkney winter, a group of…

An FAQ on Theorem Painting

1980s Stencils via Community Murals Magazine

Lincoln Cushing is worth following on social media, because he is always releasing historically important media into the world. Just this week Cushing released a full run of Community Murals magazine, a periodical that I had never heard of (Josh MacPhee knew about it, but the Interference…

Miss.Tic Memorial Monday

The Stencil Archive just uploaded a new batch of Miss.Tic works today. We also just dug into our paper archives to pull some interview excerpts from some now classic and quite obscure publications. Finally, we have cleaned up the Miss.Tic archive for an improved viewing experience. Once again, our deepest sympathies go out to this amazing artist's friends, family, and fans.

Miss.Tic stencil-text translations, from Overspray: Street Art Magazine (2005)

"Poetry is an extreme sport." ::: "Art - people = money, but for what price?" ::: "To create is to resist." ::: "Why meow when we can roar?"

Here are several excerpts…

Miss.Tic - Rest In Paint

Paris street art legend Miss.Tic dies at 66

Radhia Novat began cropping up in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris in the mid-80s and became a pioneer of French street art. Her family said she had died of an unspecified illness.

Le Monde with AFP
Published on May 23, 2022 at 03h15 

Miss.Tic, whose provocative work began cropping up in the Montmartre neighborhood of Paris in the mid-80s and made her a pioneer of French street art, died on Sunday at 66, her family told AFP.

Radhia Novat grew up in the narrow streets in the shadow of Sacré-Cœur basilica, the daughter of a Tunisian father and a mother from Normandy in western France, where she began stencilling sly and emancipatory slogans. Her family said…

City Journal Contemplates Inscriptions of Crisis

City is a journal of provocative, cutting-edge and committed insights into, analysis of, and commentary on the contemporary urban world. We record and analyse ’the city’, cities and their futures, and urbanization from multiple perspectives....

Against the wall
Introduction to the Special Feature: Inscriptions of ‘crisis’: Street art, graffiti, and urban interventions

Anna Carastathis &Myrto Tsilimpounidi
Published online: 08 Jul 2021

[a quick excerpt] In March 2011, large-scale demonstrations erupted in the city of Daraa, prompted by the arrest and detention of children who were accused of writing graffiti against the regime on the walls of their school. The protests in Daraa were said to have broken through the ‘…

Alex Vallauri (1949-87)

>NEW< Alex Vallauri on Stencil Archive

A few weeks ago, we got an email asking if the Stencil Archive featured stencil work from Brazilian artist Alex Vallauri. We didn't, so an instant online search ensued. In a brief Wikipedia entry, it is noted that Vallauri traveled to Sweden in 1975, saw graffiti, and returned to Brazil to paint walls. He then traveled to New York City in 1982 and landed in to the hot scenes of Manhattan while the city was covered in graffiti, stencils, and pop art. He flew back to Brazil and never…

Hugo Kaagman Stencils for Dutch TV Show in 1987 (Video)

Hugo Kaagman spray performance for Dutch TV program Brandpunt 1987

Bump and Update for Our First History Post

Just saw over on Insta that the Stencil Stories exhibit in Heidelberg, Germany went up late last year during the pandemic. Though the exhibit says, via translation, stencil graffiti's true roots have been forgotten, we at Stencil Archive beg to differ! For our 20th year here, we just went through our very resourceful History category (recently updated Feb. 19) and updated some of the older posts (new videos, photos, formatting, etc.).

And we also just updated our first-ever History post, which was a bibliography used for the creation of the book "Stencil Nation". We added two books that were not on the list, and updated Josh MacPhee's "Pound the Pavement" zine series info.

Here…

Wheatpaste Recipes from 1880s and 2004

Undenk has a great post with two classic wheatpaste recipes. At least we think there are two, b/c the one from 1880s (photo reposted) is difficult to read.

From Undenk:

Here’s our tried and tested wheatpaste recipe:

Makes two litres of Wheatpaste

8 cups of water, or around 2 litres

1.3 cups of Flour

90 grams of Sugar

Firstly, dump your flour in a bowl, and slowly pour in cold water whilst mixing. The aim is for a cold slurry that is easy to pour.

Boil the 8 cups in a big old saucepan and then slowly pour in the slurry.

Allow to cool.

Decant into Bike drink bottles or similar to squirt onto your poster / brush and prevent spillage.

Tip it out after a week.…