I have been making stencils for about five years now. It all started out of necessity. A group of us organizing a concert to raise awareness about Ward Connerly’s Proposition 54 wanted to have visual art at the event. So I tried making some hip hop styled stencils. We ended up setting a precedent for this kind of event and the inclusion of visual art made by students of color that were not art students. I taught myself how to cut stencils and then started to wrangle my best friends into the process. For any given event you could find me and three other Xicana homies staying up to cut stencils into the night. We ended up creating a practice and moved toward cutting images that were more political. And at some point organizations started asking me to teach groups of youth the skill and some political education through a workshop. Now, five years later, I have taught over 1000 youth the stencil workshop in the Bay Area.
When jesus told me that there was an opportunity to co-facilitate the workshop at Galeria de la Raza I was very excited. We had a great time and brought stencils that dealt with issues that are key in San Francisco, particularly to the people of the Mission. We made stencils on community power, the gang injunctions, immigration, gentrification and anti-war themes. -melanie