The Teleport Caper: Beyond the Pale
by David Wills
One grey day Sunday in January 1976, after I had been visiting with the graphic-designer Barney Bubbles, I walked from The Barbican four miles to stay at what had been my old flat on Basset Rd. with the vivacious Lucinda Cowell*, whom I had met one Saturday in the Bridge kaff on Portobello.
Somewhere on the journey, around Camden Town, I found a sombrero that added to my somewhat odd appearance. By the time I got to Notting Hill, and having sprayed my recently cut stencil in a couple of places, I got too careless and was busted, literally red handed, spray paint dribbling, as I stenciled, on a traffic-light control box, “Street Lightnin’ Gang Rules Easy, OK.”
This art was one of a series of cardboard stencils I had designed that related to SLG President Molly (now Mrs. Mark Bode) Rodriguez’s ‘World Teleport’ system of world free transport. It was an…
xSacto sends another historical stencil artifact. Mad Magazine inserted about a dozen stencils in their fifth Mad Follies (1967), with illustrated instructions by Al Jaffee. The illustrations encouraged kids to alter signs, dupe adults, and create mischief with the cut outs. Oddly enough, I found a stencil of Alfred E. Neuman up on Haight St. a few weeks ago that was made from this 40+ year old stencil!
The TRB fist logo was designed in early 1977 by Roger Huddle from Rock Against Racism. The concept of the name placed around a fist was "borrowed" from the Gay Liberation Front, while the colour scheme and typeface were suggested by Tom. Roger adapted his fist drawing from a Black Panthers publication, and also used it as a logo for the Socialist Workers Party.
The original LP version of "Power In The Darkness" (1978) in the UK contained a cardboard stencil of the TRB logo with the words: "THIS STENCIL IS NOT MEANT FOR SPRAYING ON PUBLIC PROPERTY".
Click here to view (or right-click to download) a black-on-white PDF file of the logo to print, cut out and…
KPFA's Hard Knock Radio highlights the work of Activist and Artist Favianna Rodriguez, discussing "Reproduce and Revolt" which she co-edited with Josh MacPhee. Lots of stencil-related goodness in this radical clip-art book.
That is not too surprising. Even though the Austria-born magistrate is perceived nowadays as the ancestor of modern day graffiti. Kyselak was born in Vienna on December 23rd, 1799. His perspectives weren't too bad for a man of his time. His Family was fairly rich and he was able to go to…
Not a stencil story, but worth posting as a classic reminder of human's urge to get up:
KILROY WAS HERE!
In 1946 the American Transit Association, through its radio program, "Speak to America," sponsored a nationwide contest to find the REAL Kilroy, offering a prize of a real trolley car to the person who could prove himself to be the genuine article.
Almost 40 men stepped forward to make that claim, but only James Kilroy from Halifax, Massachusetts had evidence of his identity.
Kilroy was a 46-year old shipyard worker during the war. He worked as a checker at the Fore River Shipyard in Quincy. His job was to go around and check on the number of rivets completed. Riveters were on piecework and got paid by the rivet.
Kilroy would count a block of rivets and put a check mark in semi-waxed lumber chalk, so the rivets wouldn't be counted twice. When Kilroy went off duty, the riveters would erase the mark.
For ten years now, the legal wall on Valencia Street in San Francisco's Mission District has hosted hundreds of pieces of art. Pasted posters represent the vast majority of the wall's art, but also includes anything from stenciled posters, stencils, stickers, and even children's drawings. Artists like Swoon, Shepard Fairey, SAW, members of Just Seeds, and many more have put up stencils on this wall over the years. I have been photographing this wall since I moved to San Francisco, and so has Bruce Tomb, the owner of the former Cop Shop that had the wall as its facade. Tomb has documented the wall at least once a week since around 2001, and now he has begun to put his archives online.
I have been photographing stencils and stencil posters on this wall for 10 years. This meeting is from Southern Exposure Gallery.
January 30, 2008 6:30 PM
As part of Bruce Tomb's project, the (de)Appropriation Project Archive, you are invited to a public meeting to discuss the wall at 1240 Valencia Street (btw 23rd and 24th Streets). This wall is privately owned, but its owner condones wheat pasting and graffiti on the wall's surface and has been documenting it for the past 10 years. Southern Exposure invites all to voice their thoughts around the (de)Appropriation Project Archive at a public meeting. Have you tagged the wall? Do you consider it an artwork? A nuisance? Does it build community? Degrade it? Come and share your thoughts with the community.
