Return of The Stencils

Once upon a time I used to make stencils. I was inspired by Banksy. In Nashville, I had many of them in art shows and I actually sold about a dozen of them. I like doing art and crafty stuff. It keeps me calm and grounded and lets my mind go off to that happy blank place where I can totally focus on what I'm doing instead of letting life's million complexities get to me.

At one point I had a website dedicated my stencils (Valentino Empire) but I let that lapse when I started writing. As I traveled, I found less and less time to actually make the stencils and after a while the books and writing totally took over, well, everything.

Recently, I was inspired to make more when my ever so cute 4 year old step-daughter drew some pictures that I thought would make rad stencils. So I took her pictures and converted them so they could be spray painted. The kids love to do the art projects as well so it works for everyone to get involved.

While these are primitive in design, it's a beginning, well, a restarting let's say. I have to get my chops, and my colors and canvas and spray adhesive etc back. So I start again and I'm really enjoying it. I figure it'll be a rewarding decompression from life and writing from time to time. Don't get me wrong, my life is awesome, just crazy. Don't believe me? Here's my Step Son shooting me with a toy hair dryer as I type this:

Street Art 101

Today I am going to switch to another one of my favorite subjects... Pop art. More specifically, today we are going to talk about street art. (Props goes to by bud, David Gates for inspiration on writing this.) Like music, I am very picky when it comes to my pop art. I want attitude, mixed with talent, whit and creativity. Even though I dislike graffiti in general, I love what real graffiti artists can bring to the table.

Two years ago, I went to London and Paris where I spent two days walking the streets in search of some of the more famous and popular "street artists" work. I was not disappointed. I saw dozens of Banksy (The graffiti artist Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie pay 100K for), I saw D-Face, Faile, and a bunch of other names you probably don't recognize. (Don't worry, I will give you some examples in a minute)

The essence of street art is not those ugly unreadable scribbled names on street signs or on the side of some reputable business. Real street art is done with respect to the community, (at least location wise) but sometimes does carry heavy political messages. The people that mark up a car, street sign, business, etc... are pretty much scumbags. Real street artists will pick an abandoned building, construction site, or a place that actually encourages them to put something on their walls. (In London several places, one that was a Pub and music venue encouraged artists to do work and they had some amazing things on their walls.)

Ok, to show you what I am talking about, because I fear that you are still thinking of that bad vandalism that we see so much of in America, here are some examples of really good artists that are making actual art and not just trashing the world.

Banksy


Dan


FAILE


Miss Van


D-Face