Welcome to the new/updated site, with revisions happening daily! Since 2002, your old-school website for all things stencils. Please consider donating what you can to support the much-needed upgrade. Photo, video, links, and exhibit info submissions always welcome. Enjoy and stay curious.
Positive vibes in New Orleans, thanks to CeeDaMessenger
Prior to uplading the new work, the Stencil Archive subfolders were updated. Tennessee's archive had quite a bit of photos from about 20 years ago up to the present, and two artists' work were pulled into new archives. A 2008 Banksy piece in New Orleans was missed back then, and found thanks to the exterior wall holding that piece now being inside a business, protected by a fence. Banksy Hates Me finally gets a new archive thanks to catching about three works in New Orleans.
Poplar Bluff, MO: with an eclipse in totality and one happy stencil.
The trip idea started while reading a book about Cahokia, a World Heritage Site just outside of St. Louis, MO. The idea became a spring break trip, which happened to be the same week as the last North American total eclipse for a few decades. Add some big easy New Orleans to the trip, and it was a Mississippi River fun time.
Part one of the photos snapped on this roadtrip are by artists and painters unknown. You know who you are!
We were not planning on updating the Austrian Stencil Archive at this time, but we did after getting inspired by an email submission from a dear friend in Graz, AT. He sent one he snapped, and a few others from BeneRegoef, who immediately got followed on the social streams. Now that Reddit has decided to not allow images to be saved off of their site, X/Twitter remains one of the last socials standing where images are had. Part of this site's updating phase is to try to add photo credit as much as possible, as you will see clicking through and enjoying the small but enjoyable Austrian archive.
Isabella Kwai spoke to street artists, developers and real estate advisers from several cities for this article.
Julian Phethean’s first canvas in London was a shed in his backyard where he covered the walls with bold lettering in spray paint. When he moved his art to the city’s streets in the 1980s, it was largely unwelcome — and he was even arrested a few times.
“We had nowhere to practice,” he said. “It was just seen as vandalism.”
These days, the canvases come to Mr. Phethean, better known as the muralist Mr Cenz. Recent facades, which he shares with his sizable following, have included an abstract mural on a Tesla showroom and a portrait of Biggie Smalls, sponsored by Pepsi Max.
“I never would have envisioned that I’d be able to do it for a living,” he said.
Landlords wanting to attract young professionals once scrubbed off the rebellious scrawls. That was before graffiti moved from countercultural to mainstream. Now building owners are willing to pay for it.
From Berlin to London to Miami, the wider acceptance of graffiti has attracted developers looking to expand into trendy areas, companies wanting to relocate to hipper neighborhoods and brands seeking creative ways to advertise their products.
The largest new wave stencil archive to date - New York City, with a bit of NY state thrown in - is complete, with about a dozen new images added at the end of the tedious updating.
I have wandered the streets many times in New York City and can never get enough of what is going on. Sure, things have changed over the decades, and I have found less-interesting stencils during my more recent perambulations. I'm a bit confused when I visit Williamsburg, where ruins by the river used to be full of all kinds of street art. Now there are shiny tall buildings with amazing views. Things change, especially in NYC.
But, during my last, very short trip to NYC, I found stencils. And I have to once again mention that Jaime Rojo keeps discovering interesting works while he snaps up all things fun for Brooklyn Street Art. Deep respect to him, and to the folks that keep putting up stencils in the streets over in the Big Apple.
I'll always return, and I'll always keep up the stencil hunt.
Possibly the nexus for all things stencils and street art, France hit the wave early enough to see all the possibilities of the stencil technique as well as the many variations of contemporary public art and muralismo. Paris walls remain covered with messages, signs, jokes, statements, and images, but many other parts of the country keep walls running as well. The French stencil archive is now new wave, updated, and ready for your longing gazes.
Over the years, filename formats have varied, but the final format was only decided about 5-7 years ago. The Spanish archive goes back to the beginning of the project, so filenames can be anything from "ESBarc_01" to "ESP Gren 01" or to ES_Saville_01". Part of what is going on behind the scenes is that the above are getting renamed "ES Barcelona 01", "ES Grenada 01" and "ES Saville 01". We are also attempting to rename some of the numbered images to actually include more searchable words that are in the photograph. And then there are moments when artists files (Spain had two Banksy photos and one from CSP) have to be moved to the artist archives, including when new artist archives are created.
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!
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.
