About Dot

Me, the garage, 2025. Photo by my nephew who refuses to crop his thumb out of anything.

Hi. I’m Dot.

I’ve been painting things by hand since roughly 2011, when I ruined a perfectly good dresser with what I now recognise as an ill-advised bee motif. Somewhere around ruin number six I got okay at it. I started this site in 2018 mostly to complain about a mushroom stencil, and eight years later the complaints have a readership, which nobody is more surprised about than me.

What I do, in list form, because lists hide my poor transitions:

• Decorative painting — signs, murals, the occasional mail box that the neighbours have (mostly) forgiven.
• Freehand lettering — the thing this site is secretly about, even when the headline is mushrooms.
• Street art appreciation — I look, I photograph, I do not deface. My relationship with stencil street art is complicated: the wheatpaste scene here in Portland uses them heavily and some of it is genuinely great, which annoys me.
• Zine distro — Wet Paint & Grievances, quarterly-ish, from the garage.
• Workshops — freehand lettering at the community centre, January to March. Bring a sweater, the hall radiator is decorative.

The name, since you’re wondering

“I Hate Stencil” is not a legal position. It’s a provocation that keeps me honest. Stencils are fine for some people some of the time — my own mother has stencilled a hallway I openly admire. But left unattended, stencil culture turns homes into showrooms and craft aisles into graveyards of identical wooden pumpkins. Somebody has to say it, loudly, from Portland.

FAQ, pre-answered

Do you really hate all stencils? See the manifesto, clause 5. Also the brass alphabet set. I contain multitudes, most of them annoyed.
Can I send you my stencil collection? You can. I will appreciate exactly one of them and quietly regift the rest.
Do you take commissions? Signs, yes; walls, case by case; anything involving the word “chevron” — no. Write me via the contact page.