Stencil work: scenes in a history ~ Nov 4

Mon, November 4, 2024
12:30–2:00 PM (Eastern Time)
Online

with Eric Kindel – This talk will survey scenes of stencil work spanning six centuries, discussing and illustrating the stencil’s surprisingly varied use in the production of textual and graphic documents, marks, and messages. Drawing on many years of research, the talk will explore the aesthetic, technical, social, entrepreneurial, regulatory, and linguistic dimensions of stencil work. Among the scenes will be stencil incunabula, stencil work typical of France, Britain, and the USA, the complexities of stencil terminology, and the conundrum of stencil type and typefaces. On show will be early cut-work, magnificent books made in monastic and secular ateliers, stencils cut by known makers and anonymous ones, large scale stencilled advertisements, ingenious stencil devices, stencillers in action, and much more – together offering diverse perspectives on this attractive domain of letters, type, and graphic form.