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. While stikman doesn’t assert any particular hidden message to this art, he hopes that “viewers develop a keen sense of the visual around them.” In an interview with Streets Depts, a Philadelphia-based photoblog, stikman also describes the figures as representing “the absence of personality in art. The little being with no stable form.” And so, the stikmen were born. In the first year, stikman constructed about 50 of the figures, all made of unpainted basswood. He started to experiment with other diverse mediums, including metal, wood and cloth. He even started to design stickers made of paving tape to place directly on streets and sidewalks. Stikman plastered his art in cities from New York, where he started, to Hollywood. The stikmen appear in a variety of colors, shapes and sizes on the sides of buildings, on large posters and even in a few art exhibits. This bio is excerpted from Blair McDonald's article "Curious Nashville: How Stick Figures Spotted Downtown Fit Into A Global Street Art Project"