A Little Art With a Big Backstory.

Carrie Jones

2 minutes ago

The Bar Harbor Story is generously sponsored by Bar Harbor Bicycle Shop.

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BAR HARBOR—Though people in Bar Harbor often talk about political messages chalked onto the sidewalks and even debate what the chalk is made of, another little figure hasn’t gathered much attention though he’s a bit of a movement.

The figure in a Bar Harbor crosswalk is a Stikman. It sort of looks like something from Pokemon, one person suggested. No. Maybe from Space Invaders?

Stikman isn’t either of those.

“The artist behind the figures also goes by the name ‘stikman.’ The Philadelphia native began his street-art career in the 1960s. It wasn’t until 1992, however, that stikman started to create his now-famous figures. He found his inspiration in a flea market where he saw an old plaster plaque of a man made of sticks, according to an interview with Street Art NYC. The odd figure caught stikman’s attention, and he wanted to make more,” writes WPLN of Nashville.

Other than a Wikipedia page, finding current information on Stikman isn’t the easiest thing to do on the internet, but information does exist.

“The tiny piece of street art seems to be the work of a guerilla artist known only as ‘the stikman’; who has become something of a cult sensation in larger cities like New York and Washington D.C. He leaves his small robot figures in the street, usually in crosswalks. His work first appeared in New York City, but has been spotted in numerous east coast cities, including Philadelphia and Boston,” writes Cleveland.com in 2017.

There are Flickr accounts with thousands of stickman or stikman-inspired images.

In a 2008 interview with Street Art New York, stikman (He prefers no capital letter for his pseudonym.) said the idea came to him in a flea market.

“I came upon an old plaster plaque depicting a man made of sticks who had, somehow, fled the hold of the plaster. I was intrigued. His escape and the many forms and shapes he could take on his journey gripped my imagination. And that was the beginning of this artistic journey,” stikman said.

He said he began in 1992 in the East Village and made them from basswood, initially. Then roughly around 1996, he began painting the figures and creating stickers.

He also told Street Art New York, “I started getting my name up when I was 14 years old, and later on I was into writing anti-war statements in public spaces. I’ve been building brick and stick towers since then as well.”

The figures are in multiple major U.S. cities and now, also, Bar Harbor.

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