Context

As an individual who has been involved in the creation of street art, I am very critical of resources like those pictured above that give the public access and permission to recreate works. Mass produced, publicly accessibly stencils like this make it okay for people to rip-off creative works and devalue work that is actually original. 

While I don't think graffiti or street art need be creative or artistic, the point of it is to make your mark. From its origins with Taki 183, who used markers to tag subway cars in New York, the point has always been to make something that is your own. 

I think people love to take credit for creative work and have seen this a lot in my own life. Though I always hand-draw and hand-cut my stencils, I've seen people share them on social media channels, which I view as other people appreciating them as well as sort of taking credit for discovering them. I want my work to be appreciated, but Instagramming it and throwing a filter on it is akin to "reposting" and in my eyes is others making my creative work theirs. 

With this as the backdrop of the assignment, I wanted to make a stencil that basically took extremely recognizable works and arranged them into a cohesive stencil that others could print and cut and reproduce (and maybe even spray-paint on something but we denounce that kind of behavior here at Carnegie Mellon). So I took a pop-culture icon, a famous street artist, and a drug reference and put it into one. The result depicts internet icon "Grumpy Cat" and shows a likeness to Shepard's Ferry.