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Welcome to the new/updated site! 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.

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Coming Up from Jef Aerosol

expo collective / group show - Salle Courmont (Lille, France)

hommage / tribute : Roger Frézin (1927-2012)

vernissage / opening : 9 nov, 18h - live painting Jef Aérosol : 18h45

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In the Galleries

Logan Hicks "Lights Out" to Benefit Hurricane Sandy victims

"Lights Out" Benefit photograph from Logan Hicks for Hurricane Sandy victims

Hurricane Sandy has destroyed entire towns and families in the tri-state New York area. While my own family and belongings escaped any real damage, many were not as fortunate. As we came through the hurricane, I thought 'that wasn't so bad' - and in my neighborhood, it wasn't. Then the news channels started to parade the misery of communities like Staten Island and Breezy Point across the screen. They were decimated. Entire houses washed away, lives lost, and cherished possessions destroyed.

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Artist News

Go About Your Stencil Pleasures

Props to Justin at Mission Web Works for fixing the joint up. Thumbnails are linked. You can now click around as usual....

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Stencil Archive News

Amy Rice's Playing with Stencils book: order now!

Long time Stencil Archive friend and participant Amy Rice (see her Archive here) has a new book coming out. When I looked through my book "Stencil Nation" with people, Amy's unique stencil style would always stand out from the other sections. She also holds the honor of being my mom's favorite stencil artist!

http://www.qbookshop.com/products/210258/9781592538294/Playing-with-Sten...

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Artist News

23 Aug: Stencil Portraits by Thomas Muller (Hamburg, DE)

Thomas and I have a lot in common. We both started photographing stencils and then firgured out how to cut and paint our own. Thomas is one of the first photographers to share his photos with the Stencil Archive, and was featured in my book back in 2008. When I took my Stencil Nation tour to Europe, he helped me set up a presentation in Hamburg. Most if not all of the stencil artists showed up to that freezing basement happening, and they all brought art with them.

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In the Galleries

BSA Interviews Icy and Sot (NY, NY)

Go here for full interview.

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Artist Interview

15 Sep: Scott Williams Home Invasion (SF, CA)

Home Invasion
Scott Williams
September 15 - Oct 20, 2012
6pm to 8pm
This fall, Steven Wolf Fine Arts will recreate the studio interior of painter Scott Williams, best known to San Franciscans as an early aerosol street artist who painted murals, cars and interiors using a spray can and stencils. His primary media though, since 2000, when he exchanged spray can for airbrush, is canvas, wood, and books. Williams cinematic, stencil montages take the form of landscapes, rock posters, political propaganda and various forms of abstraction. Literature, punk flyers, Asian woodcuts and obscure comic books are among his many sources.

One of his most intriguing creations is the interior of the Victorian Mission flat that he has lived in for the past 25 years. The residence, studio and gallery is a mixture of wall stencils, decay and paintings that hang on the wainscoting and stack on the floor like sloppy layer cakes. The space is a link to an era of San Francisco studios that flourished before skyrocketing rents, gentrification and the evolution of live/work spaces into generic corporate interiors. His capacity to achieve a painterly looseness with stencils, and his tendency to work flat on the ground in the manner of the abstract expressionists mirrors that link to the past. The installation will include paintings from every stage of Williams' career, new stencils made directly on the wall, and fragments of the studio itself.

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In the Galleries

Stencil Archive: Technical Difficulties

Well now.

You may have noticed that the homepage navigation bar is at the bottom of the page. This usually means that content wasn't properly pasted into the Body field, thus messing with the code. After a bit of troubleshooting, the page didn't fix itself.

There also appears to be a disconnect within the site to image links. Thumbnails in the Archives are broken, as are some of the links to the blog posts.

Please stand by.... stencils are still available to browse. Just might be a bit more weirder than usual.