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Who is Eclair

 

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From 2018, finally answering the burning question.

Back in 2006, I started snapping photos of stencils from an artist that had many names. Many names for many stencils: Clair, Eclaire, Eclair, Eclairacuda, Eclairitory, Swanksy, and the now discontinued Eclair(acuda) Bandersnatch. Images ranged from little dogs, women in heels and tight dresses, bondage, sailors and cowboys, whistleblowers, animal and human hybrids, animals, buildings, Banksy, politics; all in a unique hand-drawn and cut style. Eclair also had words in stencils, which I think is the hardest thing to cut out. So many words, with the paint job sometimes being rushed because all of these images were mostly done without permission. 

Eclair's stencil archive has been updated, with a few new images, but it wasn't easy. Out of the thousands of stencils on this site, Eclair's archive has always been the most difficult to curate and maintain. If the names were not enough trouble, there was the volume of work going up. I could usually remember if I had snapped a stencil, but with Clair's work, I snapped it all and looked at my back ups to see if I already had it. I try to keep out duplicates but I am sure duplicates exist in Eclair's archive. 

I have met Eclair several times over the years, and they were all memorable. At a Last Gasp holiday burrito party, I met her for the first time. While we geeked out about stencils, I noticed that 3-4 people were watching our conversation like I was giving an interview. Her answers were amazing and funny, and one awed spectator asked me who she was. Another time, at a "Mission Muralismo" book event at the de Young museum, Eclair decided to set up a stencil-making station without permission, beside my stencil exhibit, INSIDE the de Young. Security made her go outside where she had a steady stream of people taking stencils in the cold, foggy night. And then I happened to bike by her just off Divisadero Street while she was painting an illegal stencil in the middle of the day. Dressed as glamorous as her stencils characters, with her tiny dog (just like in her stencils) running around, she lugged her paint cans and cut outs in a fancy strapped bag. "Do you always paint stencils in broad daylight dressed this nice?" I asked. She confirmed she did.

She does do permission work, but it looks exactly like her illegal work. Eclair has very little social media presence, and rarely does exhibits, but I try to keep her work up here for all to share. She isn't getting up as much as she used to, but here's to 18 years of Eclair in the streets of San Francisco!

A Stencil Breakfast on Divis

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Table for two, surrounded by Misstencil art, at the Bean Bag Cafe

The wait was too long at Eddie's just down Divisadero St. a few Saturdays ago, so breakfast and coffee happened at the Bean Bag Cafe. Walking in, the art was immediately identified as that of the mysterious Misstencil. Currently the most active stencil artist in San Francisco, one of her pieces got photographed on Divis weeks ago, a few blocks down from this show. Only now do we know that you all should stop by Bean Bag and check out the rest of the work.

To Be in England...

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RX SKulls, somewhere in London

The work spiral begins to bend towards the larger-sized archives here on Stencil Archive, but we are still choosing the sections that have new images to add. Next in the queue may be Spain or France, while Italy and Canada are also being considered. 

For now, we have updated the United Kingdom, with over 600 images, which did not take as long as planned because many image filenames were properly formatted. There was only one new image to add after we realized that the other images were going to a new archive for RX Skulls. Then we pulled three images from the UK to update John D'oh's archive

And, for extra credit, we have updated and added new images to the Greece and Portugal archives. Next up, more new wave work in the Euro zones, so stay tuned.

While You Are Waiting...

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Cut It Out Cover

... for either this website to load (seems slow right now) or for the latest tasty Stencil Archive upgraded new wave bit (hopefully coming this weekend)... we thought you'd enjoy another Banksy classic pdf, aptly named "Cut it Out": As in stop painting all that illegal art? Or possibly "grab that pizza box, draw something, and" - well - you know the rest? Only Banksy knows. By the way, Archive.org (no relation) has this and a lot more books online and pdf'd. They have tons of everything else anyone could possibly imagine as well, so wander over there after you visit here.

This Week, Australia

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N20 makes a strange hybrid on the streets of Melbourne (ph Jeremy Novy)

Around 2004, word was out that Australia (with an all fresh and updated archive here on Stencil Archive) had cities covered in painted walls. Melbourne is one of the cities where the modern street art wave took off, and the 2005 book "Stencil Graffiti Capital: Melbourne" proved that the modern era had begun. Earlier, just after the Stencil Archive project started as a low-skilled DIY site, a group of folks with serious web design skills started Stencil Revolution (RIP, but here is a Wayback archive of the 2003 site) in Australia. That site, more than mine, really propelled the online image and info sharing that is now taken for granted. Things were happening fast way down in Melbourne!

Here in San Francisco, stencils had been on the streets since the 1980s, but nothing here compared to the wave in Melbourne where every artist was collaborating and cutting out images to cover full alleys of walls. Inspired, we started organizing walls and stencils exhibits. Russell "Klutch" Short started his career in earnest, curating awesome Vinyl Killers shows up in Portland, OR. Peat EYEZ really started getting into it, along with many other artists. Banksy headed to Melbourne to paint some stencils around 2003, and I did too in 2008 for the Stencil Fest

By 2008, Australian artists had become known and represented. Many had moved on from the cut-out images still going up and others considered moving to other cities to grow their art careers. While meeting amazing people who all seemed so nice and affable, I managed to spray a few stencils while biking around taking 100s of photos. At the few Stencil Fest events I went to (my trip was cut short by an emergency back in USA), I enjoyed working together on random scraps of media to make interesting collab stencils. I managed to sell some copies of "Stencil Nation" and even ride a Critical Mass on a hilarious chopper bike that the Blender Space loaned me.

Even in 2008, the walls were covered with 1000s of stencils. I did not have the time to identify and describe all the stencils because I had taken almost 500 photographs while riding a borrowed fixie bike. For the 2024 AU Archive update, these images are a bit larger, but still just numbered.

I ended this new wave update last night with the legendary Regan Tamanui, probably the nicest person I have ever met. During my visit to Melbs, he gave me his bed and room to live in and anything in his studio. He fed me, gave me beer, loaned me a bike, drew me maps of where to find covered walls. When I had to suddenly fly back to the USA, he and Doyle from the Blender space managed to borrow a car to take me to the airport. 

Prior to my early departure from Melbourne, I never saw my beer glass empty. If I turned around to talk to someone, and went back to the glass, it was always full. I was almost always fed when there was pizza or food to be had. This is a great metaphor for the fullness of the too-brief trip to Melbourne back in the heady early days of the stencil/street art wave, and I have never forgotten it!

Social Media Connex Get the Goods

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The legend Peter Kuper dropped this stencil on social streams.

While somewhat a cesspool of opinions, lies, racism, and other eye-rolling behavior, social media can help Stencil Archive find images from across the world. We try to give credit to the photographer, but that usually only happens when images are found on Reddit. Over on Twitter - er - X, we have followed three solid accounts that continue to share stencils from around the world. We have given them proper thanks over the years, but thought the time was good to drop their links over on the blue bird site: Louniki, Radical Graffiti, and sometimes Street Art Utopia. As for subreddits, there are stencils and streetart to visit for looking a pics and having conversations about all things stencils.

This update is almost entirely brought to you by the awesome folks over on the blue bird site. Thanks, as always!

Three New Artists, and One Extra

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Brad Kahlhamer

Regan Tamanui reached out to me a few weeks ago, asking about leads for Native American stencil artists. I recalled catching Douglas Miles' work at the de Young here in SF a while back, but dug a bit more for any other artists working with cut outs. I found a few more, giving them NEW Stencil Archives:

Another NEW Stencil Archive goes out to UK's Masvandal, and Faile just got an upgraded archive with one photo added by Jaime Rojo from Brooklyn Street Art. Worth noting here that Faile's archive dates back to 2011, but the photo backups are dated even earlier to 2005.

New Zealand-Aotearoa Archives Updated

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by milarky (NZ)

We have updated the NZ archives, including the artists archives and the 2005 Sliced exhibit archive. While going through the Sliced images, two artists were pulled out for their own NEW archives: milarky and welly chick.

You are not imagining the smaller size of milarky's featured image. Back in the early 21st century, there wasn't a cloud storage option and hosting plans were more expensive. Images are much smaller from this era, and these are the only copies backed up from the site. Do not let the size keep you from checking out an amazing slice of early street art works. 

New Images from Shepard Fairey

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art also by Vhils (photo by Jaime Rojo for Brooklyn Street Art)

Shepard Fairey's just-updated stencil archive may be small, but the artist has always used stencils with his groundbreaking street art projects and style. I was fortunate to see Fairey's original, and controversial, Obama "Hope" collage rendering at the Smithsonian in Washington, DC during my Stencil Nation tour. That collage incorporated stencils. Watching Fairey and his crew put up large billboard-sized portraits here in San Francisco years later, they incorporated paper cutting into the process: cutting out parts and taping them on the wall to mask spraypaint and then taking that piece off to paint a different color. It was fascinating to watch, and fnnch has told me that he's picked up that method for his larger murals.

Fairey's tools and methods have basically defined street art since he threw up his first stickers in the late 1980s: stickers, posters, stencils, skateboard/hip-hop, political, etc.. He made stickering a must have cultural practice, and used stencils and posters to define his message and esthetic. I first saw Andre the Giant stencils in NYC years before I started Stencil Archive. Unsure if Fairey actually painted these viral images, I've put most of these photos in geographic archives rather than crediting the artist.

Nonetheless, this weekend's efforts here on Stencil Archive have allowed me to revisit some of the legends' varying styles. It has been a pleasure looking back over these great works of art while considering how Jef Aerosol, Fairey, and Banksy have helped define "street art" since the early 1980s.