knowledge is power

ain't it the truth.

The original image was taken over the summer when I visited Mr. Reese (my former Master teacher) and some of my students who were doing time in summer school.

Miguel (pictured) and Cesar were playing around with Mr. Reese's old He-Man sword (clearly this was after classes were over...well, I shouldn't say "clearly" because I wouldn't put it past either of them to bust out a plastic sword and begin dueling in the middle of class) and we got some fun shots of them pretending to kill me (which they enjoyed immensely).

I ought to do a stencil of one of those pictures, though I don't know if the message it would be sending would be quite as positive as this one.

runnin' the beach

This stencil shows the reverse image of a photo taken of Miguel (the student from deep East Oakland I mentor damn near everyday) at Ocean Beach in San Francisco (that's the Cliffhouse buildingin dark purple).
We ended up climbing up those cliffs in the background (all the way up to the Cliffhouse!!) and then down to the ruins of Sutro's Baths on the other side.
Goodtimes.
Then it started pouring rain.
POURING.
And we still had to climb back up the cliffs and walk all the way back to the car (which was parked in front of the Beach Chalet!).
Fucking soaked.
Badtimes.

budapest matt and karina reflection (work in progress)

I actually made the last stencil for this but lost it in my house somewhere. Either I need to clean out our closet (HA!) or just cut another one. I'm leaning towards just cutting another.
Just need to get money to buy printer ink (Kinkos can suck it) so if someone wants to go demand some from the oakland school district office for all the unpaid work I've been doing then be my guest (to quote Efren, "Ms. K just say the word and me and my cousins will go down to the district and get you your money." Lol. that's all I need is a gang war against OUSD started on my behalf. nice.)

The last stencil is of Matt's shirt, the trees on the other side of the river, the rims of his glasses, my sunglasses in the reflection, a tree in the reflection, a part of the church in the reflection and my camera in the reflection.

"He puts his full attention on this monument" (matt on bus tour in prague)

This is a rare, one-piece, non shadow stencil. I was kinda experimenting with different forms. I guess this one is more graffiti stencil inspired except it would just fall to shreds if you tagged it up somewhere.

This is actually the reverse of the image as well as I am still tweaking it. The quote that it is named after is what Opa said when he was going through the pictures that I took on our Europe trip.

steve and meghan as popeye and olive oil

Cut this stencil of Steve and Meghan on Halloween to print for their Christmas presents (very crafty christmas this year). I reprinted it for part of my purple series in my dining room.
Love the matching nose rings!

michelle obama

Part of a series of Obama stencils I did on election day.
She is my new roll model.
Way to bring yourself from the hood to the best universities in the country and then on to the White House Michelle.

the obamas

Also part of the series of Obama stencils cut on election day (I was a very prolific stencil cutter that day!)
I love the tenderness of their closeness. It's refreshing to see.

Running for Office (Hairless barack and michelle obama)

Woops.
Forgot to cut Barack's hair!
Yet another Obama stencil cut on election day (can you tell I was fucking stoked?).
Michelle's pearls in this one inspired my gigantic pearls that I've been sporting recently (Not Wilma Flintstone, as many have assumed)

richard alvia camel ridin' in Egypt (blurry photo of image)

The camel in the original photo is making the scariest face ever.
This shot was taken at the base of Khafre's pyramid on the Giza Plateau in the spring of 2004.
My camel driver was very inappropriate.
'Chard's was cool though.

Jimmy Ward, Milton Montes and D'Juan Foreman

This is from the last day of school last year (their 6th grade year).
Some of my favorite kids of all time (cept Miguel of course)
Love how Jimmy busted out a lemon yellow suit for the occasion.
Milton (with the stunna shades on) used to kick my ass on Super Smash Bros. Brawl online

pirate matt

Matt's 6 dollar halloween costume.
Aaaaarrrrrrr.

miguel castillo (reppin 100s) and daniel avalos

Notice the school shirts the kids are wearing. Love the ECP logo and Miguel's sunglasses-actually I think they were stolen from Karen...(they're those crazy 80s ones that are solid plastic with just slits cut out of the front. AND they're bright yellow. i fucking love the kids' styles in East Oakland. so fucking slick.)

The funniest/saddest thing about this is the FIRST thing Miguel said when he saw this wasn't "oh that's cool" or something like that. It was literally "Why is my shirt blue?"

ismini and gareth in budapest

This one was also cut for gareth and ismini's christmas presents and then printed again for my purple series.

I find that when I cut stencils I often either don't get around to printing them for a couple of months (if at all!) and when I do, I rarely print a copy for myself. This is partially due to the durability of the medium, as photocopy paper can only hold about two prints with acrylic paint per stencil until it begins to get soggy and fall apart. And then I hardly ever want to sit around for the stencil to dry completely before printing again so I usually just do a run of two and then file the thing away.

The whole purple series thing is kind of my reaction to that. I say kind of because it is partially a reaction to dom requesting prints of my shit, so the series, I suppose was really a reaction to dom and i's mutual request for prints of my work. All of them are hanging in the dining room now and we're about to paint the walls this bright, acidy lime green, so they will either pop and look rad as hell or need to be moved to another location. Only time will tell...

fountain in Erzsebet ter. Budapest (shadow stencil)

This is still one of the stencil's that I am most proud of. This print was done at the end of 2004 (I don't recall the specific month, but i believe i wrote it on the back of one of the pieces of this print, but they're attached to the bedroom wall at the moment-notice my trademark room collage bleeding onto it on the top)

This fountain was right off of Deak Ference ter. Metro stop, along the path I took to my favorite cafe next to the church that my grandmother used to go to in Budapest, Hungary. I used to go hang around that neighborhood nearly every day, either to visit the church, the cafe, my super cheap and awesome restaraunt or the international school's library (to research for my independent study paper on the effect of the Hunyadi kings in keeping the Ottoman Empire out of Europe-for which I was mentored by my fav professor of all time Marty Claussen, via internet)...mmm or the ice cream and dessert shop...mmmmm...

wait what? oh yeah the fountain. So I would always pass it en route to my old haunts and one day in May the light was just so amazing; casting the most triumphant looking shadows across the figures.

Early May seems to have the best light for shadow stencils.

oma preggers with minda

I love the original photo. My grandma looks huge! She always wore black and white, hence the colors I chose for this one. The pomeranian she's holding was some friend of her's dog.

Oma always wore her hair like that.

my plural cuz (ross and ryan)

This looks exactly like them.
Our friend Jason says it looks exactly like him and his cousin.
Weird.

(actually i've just been told that it looks like him and his childhood best friend.
whatever. it's still weird.)

my bro in vienna (kyle shadow stencil)

First of all, notice what it's printed on.

Hell yeah.

Other than that, i'm really stoked off this. This photo was taken in the spring of 2004 when I was studying in Budapest and kyle and my mom came out to visit me. The day they arrived I was like, go to bed early cause tomorrow we're catching a train to Vienna at 7:30am. Then I took them around the city for two days before going back to Budapest. In the original pic I'm standing next to him checking a map trying to find out how to get to Grinzing (which is where my grandma lived during the war when she met my grandpa).

I also printed this over a street map of Vienna for a Christmas present for my dad and Nieta.

vienna bumper cars (chel and steve)

Daniel Avalos

RIP Tonks

matt chel me in prague

Cisco

Matt riding gareth in Budapest (millenium monument)

dom nick chel rina (shadow stencil)