Fezziwig Press & Photography by Stu Jenks

From The 2009 All Souls' Procession

From The 2009 All Souls' Procession, Tucson, Arizona (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

[All images by Stu Jenks, except the bottom one of me in a kilt, taken by Tom Willett]

 

"Hoop Dancing" by Stu Jenks is available for pre-sale!

"Hoop Dancing: More Journeys Through Nocturnal Photography: Book Two" is now in the pre-sale stage. The book has been beautifully printed by Tucson Master Printers Arizona Lithography and is now at the book binders in Phoenix. It will be ready for shipment by December 1st if not earlier.

Simply go to my website at www.stujenks.com, and pre-order the book there. You can use Paypal or if you wish to pay by check, just send me a check to my P.O.Box, listed on my site, and send me an email at stujenks@gmail.com to let me know you have bought a book and I'll reserve a specific numbered copy for you. If you pay through Paypal, I'll get all of your information for shipment through them.

The first 30 numbered edition can be ordered and reserved, by a specific edition number.

I tried to keep the cost as low as possible to y'all, but I am publishing this book through my own house at Fezziwig Press, and beautiful lithography costs money. You truly get what you pay for, when it comes to print quality. The book is not coffee-table size but rather an intimate 6 x 9 inch book, cloth-bonded, and dust-jacketed, with a 4 x 6 inch signed photograph included with each book. All books are numbered, signed and shrink-wrapped.

This is the first in a series of at least five books by me, from Fezziwig Press. Not to beg, but the more I sell, the greater chance of I have of producing the other books. My first book, "Flame Spirals" is no longer available through Lulu.com (The print quality was not up to my standards.) but will hopefully be available as cloth-bond, lithography book, in the Summer of 2010, God willing and the creek don't rise. Master Book Designer Gail Cross has almost finished the book design of "Flame Spirals" and it looks stunning, if you ask me. And she designed "Hoop Dancing" and I've been brought to tears, more than once, from the amazing care and love she has taken with my images and text.

So, just in time for Christmas, you can purchase 'Hoop Dancing". Truly, it would a great gift for anyone on your Christmas list.

And it goes without saying, that I appreciate all of y'all's support: financially, emotionally, and spiritually.

Love and light,

Stu Jenks

p.s. I got Mary some Scotch last night. She had a bad day. She either thought I had died, or suddenly remember that her husband Stuart was dead. We're not sure. But her seeing me did help. And a wee dram of Dewer's really did the trick as well. Two fingers, over ice, with a splash. After taking a long draw on the straw from her bed, Mom opened her mouth, said "Ah..." and then said, as clear as a bell, '...Now that's good!"

"Beaufort, South Carolina" by Robert Frank

"Beaufort, South Carolina, 1955" (detail) by Robert Frank

[Taken by me at the MOCA in Downtown Los Angeles in September. I had permission. Sadly, the images from "The Americans" series were very poorly lit, not like the same images I saw in August, at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. There, they were exquisitely lit. This, and others in the series are perfect photographs: The woman's radiant face, the sun behind her, the light pole that echos the Cross. Perfect. Other memories from MOCA: LA that day, were a class of tweens taking a tour of the museum and having their teacher or a docent tell them that the poorly-crafted, arrogant, nightmares-on-a-wall they were seeing, were actually good paintings. The look on the kids' faces was priceless. Remember, it was a child who told the townspeople that the Emperor had no clothes on. Sadly, the schoolkids weren't in the room with "The Americans." I bet they would have looks of awe on their faces, not wrinkled-up noses. Hopefully they got to see them before they left.]

"When people look at my pictures I want them to feel the way they do when they want to read a line of a poem twice." - Robert Frank.

Artist's Talk for "@1w/"

[Photograph of yours truly, taken by Annie Gordon, at the Artist's Talk for my show "@1w/". This show runs for another week at the Tucson Jewish Community Center. Thanks to all who came to the opening, to all who came to see it at other times, and to all of y'all, for your help along the way.]

"Spiral in the Ironwood Forest"

"Spiral in the Ironwood Forest, Arizona" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

"On A Ruined Bridge"

"On A Ruined Bridge, Old Sonoita Highway, Arizona" (c) 2009 Stu Jenks

[I prefer this image to the one just below. The headlight of the car in the below image now bugs me a little and I prefer a teal hoop to a purple one, at least tonight. But most importantly, I like that I show up in this image. It appears that I'm walking on air (I kinda am), and I like that. I've worked hard for years at making myself invisible in my nocturnal images. I think now I need to be seen a little more tonight, even if it's just a time-exposed shadow.

Lastly, I could have easily photoshopped-out the power pole, but I didn't for two reasons: one, it works in the design of the photograph, and two, when I shot this dance, my demented mother who is a devout Episcopalian, was in Northwest Hospital in Tucson. Still is, with a bit of pneumonia, but she should be released tomorrow. I'm not a Christian but she is. The power pole/cross is for her.]

Stu's 2009 Economic Stimulus Package at CafePress

Stu's 2009 Economic Stimulus Package at CafePress.

My business model for 2008 didn't work very well. (The economy tanking didn't help much either.) Last year, I made large expensive framed images to sell to people of great means. But this year, along with the big prints, I'm producing inexpensive objects for the struggling middle class, like you and me. Ceramic ornaments and tiles. Coffee mugs. Magnets. T-shirts. Even an Owl's Head wall clock. All these can be purchased NOW at Cafe Press, at the Stu Store there.

So get your Christmas shopping done early, or buy your sweetheart an ornament for Valentine's Day.

Or you can be the first on your block to own a Stu Jenks coffee mug.

Happy shopping, and maybe your own personal ecomomy be stimulated this year.

Much love and prosperity,

Stu

"The Day After Christmas"

"The Day After Christmas, Coalmine Canyon, Hopi/Navajo Joint Use Land, Arizona (c) 2008 Stu Jenks

[The Christmas Gift I gave myself this year. Seven hours up from Tucson, seven hours back, and a hour of snowy bliss walking around the edge of a place I've been coming to, for over 20 years. First time seeing it in the snow. Coldest I've been in the year 2008 (around 20 degrees F with a windchill well below zero, I reckon.) Recommitted to hiking in 2009, to The Heaven Boulder and The Ghost that lay deep in Coalmine. Yes, true, too many people now know about Coalmine Canyon, thanks to a front page article a few years ago in Phoenix's Arizona Republic, but the good news is that few hike down into it. There is only one way down and it is a bear. So why fall down a steep talis slope of dirty coal, most think, when you can see this wondrous sight from the rim. So come on, tourists, if you must, but pick up your trash, please, and pause for a moment and feel its power. (Both Hopi and Navajo believe the canyon is haunted. I've seen the ghosts myself.) And Merry Christmas, Coalmine, and may you, and I, and all of us, have a happy, peaceful and joyous New Year.]

[P.S.: The next-to-last image is of my trusty truck Chesepeake. And those hills you see in the distance in the bottom photo ain't hills, but rather The Grand Canyon as seen from over fifty miles away at Coalmine Canyon.]

The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Seventeen: "Along The Methuselah Trail"

The Transpersonal Papers: Chapter Seventeen:
 
“Along The Methuselah Trail, Ancient Bristlecone Forest, White Mountains, California”

© 2008 Stu Jenks

 

Namaste.

The God in me sees the God in you.

This Sanskrit greeting has been in my head a lot on this trip. I’ve been trying to remember this phrase, when I first meet people. With kind folk, I then tend to see them as gods and goddesses. With jerks, I then tend to see them as good souls but with a big pile of crap on top of their heads.

It snowed here a week ago. Someone has walked this four-mile loop before me. I don’t know this trail, but I don’t need to, with a single set of footprints guiding me forward.

The rambunctious bikers are behind me. Very good chance they won't walk far. It’s cold, but not bitter. The sun’s going down. It will be dark soon.

I round a corner after a mile and see a Bristlecone highlighted on a ridge line. The tree so brightly lit, it’s as if the Sun was a follow-spot in a dark theatre. I raise my 70-200 and shoot. Pow, pow, pow. Again. Pow, pow, pow. I look at the screen on the back of the camera. I smile. That’s a shot. Insurance, too.

Ever since I first touched a Bristlecone in Eastern Nevada two years ago, they are like gods and goddesses to me too. They are the oldest living things on Earth, some living to be older than 4.000 years old. The oldest known Bristlecone lives somewhere on this trail. He is 4,723 years old. They don’t tell you which tree he actually is, but they do say, you walk right by him and you could touch him if you knew to.

Limber Pines and Bristlecones surround me now. (Limbers look somewhat similar to Bristlecones but are taller, with different needles, and don’t live as long, but they are old trees nonetheless. If it wasn’t for the Bristlecones, they would be the stars of this forest.) Beside these two species of trees, not much grows on these dolomite hills. Actually it’s because of this poor soil, that the Bristlecones (and Limbers) thrive here.

When I was near Wheeler Peak two years ago, there were quite a few Bristles growing near a receding glacier, but not a large grove. But the troop of trees here covers three ridge lines and hundreds of acres and they say there are even more Pines to the north, along a road that is now impassable by snow.

There is a low hum here, a deep hurrup of old creatures.

This is Fangorn Forest of Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings.

And Treebeard does live here. But they call him Methuselah.

 

Sun’s been down about an hour now. Only a little blue left in the black of the sky. Stars are shining ever brighter now. I’m two miles deep into the forest.

I’ve just taken the Rollei off of my tripod and replaced it with the Canon. The Rollei’s insurance. Shoot, for all I know, the black and white will be better than the digital.

I’ve hoop-danced a lot beside a old man (or is she an Ent-Wife.) Maybe I’ve danced too much. Maybe I need to stick with just two or three hoops rather than five or six. Just like I can overwork a painting and make its colors muddy, I can over-spin a hoop dance and make it too busy. The simplest artistic answer is usually the right one.

The Full Moon’s shine hits the side of this old man’s hide. Hard snow freezes at his base. I’ll just hoop-dance to his left. Three hoops only. An odd number seems to be the key.

I climb up the hill and do my spinning. I then return to the camera. It’s very cold but I’m loving it. I’ll expose the digital neg for about five minutes. With film, I exposed for close to ten. Overexpose black and white film, underexpose the digital color.

I close the shutter after five. Now, I have five minutes of noise reduction before I can reshoot. I think I’ll go and say hello to him again.

I make my way up the snowy hill, gingerly stepping as I have all night, not to dislocate too much of the rocky soil, for it’s only this poor ground that keeps these trees alive. The primary reason that the Bristlecone Pines eventually die is because after three or four centuries, all the soil that covers their roots erodes away and they simply die of drought and famine. The Earth leaves them, but they don’t leave the Earth, even after death. Much of the deadwood around me on the forest floor is over 7000 years old.

I find the big root I’ve been resting on all night and I gently seat myself on it again. I close my eyes. I take a deep breath. I place my right hand on the tree. I touch the smooth dead surface of this old man’s body. Even though this part of him is dead, I can still feel a low hum of life ringing through his trunk. He’s alive and happy. Maybe my being here makes him a little happier. I hope so. I don’t reckon he gets many guest humans, up this ravine.

“Funny,” I say to him, “I was wondering if you are the Methuselah Tree and now I think, to even try to figure it out is simply absurd. All of y’all are very old. Except for a few hundreds-years-old whipper-snapping skinny guys over there, most of you have seen many stars pass over your heads, many snows at your feet.”

He doesn’t say anything, but I can feel him listening.

“Thank you,” I say, “for being such a good model and for saying yes when I asked you if I could photograph you.”

“You…are…very…welcome…,” he says.

I stop talking, but I don’t lift my right hand for a good long while. I just keep giving him as much love as I can. Out of the palm of my right hand.

And like when I first met that nice couple in Groveland, California, the other day, I think these few words.

The God in me sees the God in you.

 



 

"Dawn at Half Dome"

"Dawn at Half Dome, Yosemite National Park, California" (c) 2008 Stu Jenks