The Orbis

stencils [Click to enlarge]

Do you ever dream of a world where art is available to all without concern for class, race, gender, or education? Do you ever dream of a world where you can put up your own art wherever there is a wall? Can you imagine a world where a city is always changing and always maturing with new and innovative art as opposed to being cluttered with the advertisements that currently dot our cities? If so, you're not alone.

You might have seen some of the street art that adorns our fair city of Nashville. A stenciled image of a bike on a dumpster, a zeppelin floating in the clouds, a pirate parachuting down from the heavens, or political messages with pictures of Bush with captions below reading "I'm Rich Bitch." This is the art of our city. This is stencil graffiti.

Many consider stencils to be a populist expression of art available to anyone and everyone, art that can be seen in an individual's every day life. You don't have to pay hefty museum or gallery admission fees in order to view this art, and you don't have to be a professional artist in order to create this art. Stencils pop everywhere where people gather. They can be seen on the walls of coffee shops, on the sidewalk at parks, or on walls passed by on a person's way to work. In order to view this art all you have to do is live, go about your every day business. In order to make a stencil, you only need to think of an image you wish to display, convert it into a simple positive-negative pattern, apply to wall, and spray.

Often stencils lend themselves to political expression. Anger at nuclear proliferation, displeasure with a current administration, and messages of hope have made their appearances in public venues through stencils. What's as important as the message is often the motivation of the act. Stencils are often characterized as reclamation of public space that has been conquered by corporate ownership. Some may say that graffiti is blight on our landscape, but I would respond that every golden arch or ad for cologne that claims to make me sexier to women is a blight on our landscape, and a blight that I can't control.

Nashville, often seen as part of the "backwards" South, is a haven for stencil art. A community of artists has utilized the canvas of this city to create a venue for public expression that rivals cities like New York, Berlin, and Paris. Although the artists are few in numbers, they have contributed significantly to the global stencil community. Nashville stencil art reflects local concerns as well as global concerns. Stencils drawing attention to the nuclear facility at Oak Ridge, and its role in the attacks on Hiroshima can be seen throughout Nashville, and concerns about fossil fuel depletion, jabs at the Bush administration, and support for greater human empowerment and community building are prevalent.

Stencils can only be fully appreciated if discovered. I cannot even describe how great it feels to see something for the first time, knowing that many have probably seen this before, but you, yourself discovered it. This of course is a highly romanticized view of graffiti. You don't have to agree. All I ask is that you keep your eyes open and react. If an image makes you smile, great! If it makes you frown, great! Such is the nature of art and expression: the diversity of means and message can create mixed reactions, but all that's important is the reaction.

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