Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair: An Installation
Photography by Stu Jenks. Lighting by Jeff Smith.
The Arizona Biennial is coming up. I'm heading to the post office in a few to mail my submission. It's a crap shoot. Yet this year, I think I have a better chance than average, for this piece falls into the wheelhouse of Contemporary Art quite nicely, if you ask me. (Why my other work doesn't is for another time and discussion.) Wish me luck. I'll know in the First of May.
"Dead And Alive Junipers, The Arizona Trail, North Of Sonoita, Arizona" (c) 2012 Stu Jenks
This would look nice really big. The file is plenty large enough.
I'm soon to lose the use of my Brownies to make images like this, due to the film no longer being made, but I've gained the use of my iPhone 4S to make them instead. That makes me happy.
Thanks to Terry Etherton's Gallery for having those wonderful, simple, profound Harry Callahan images of Eleanor. I saw them tonight. They inspired me to make this simple, black and white image, about life, death and rebirth.
And I read this image from right to left, (Life, the right tree, Death, the middle tree, Rebirth, the empty horizon on the left), but you can look it anyway you like.
...written about a person they called The Spray Paint Prankster. That would be me. Photographer unknown. He worked for the paper. This photograph was taken inside the Chapel Hill Police Station after I turned myself in...
To know more, buy the book.
After a long wait, The Shifting Light: A selection of sixteen stories taken from The Transpersonal Papers: 1861-2010; Flame Spirals; Bozo In Love; Hoop Dancing; and Dementia Blues is now available on Apple's iBooks. It's also available on Barnes & Nobles Nook and on Amazon's Kindle.
And best of all, it's only $2.99. I'm very happy with this sampler and it includes an introduction written by mythic fiction author Charles de Lint. Thank you, Charles.
P.S. Apologies to those who don't have digital access. The Shifting LIght isn't yet available as an analog book book, but hopefully someday.
Today, Red: A Juried Invitational formally opens at Etherton's Temple Gallery. Click on this link to take you to Etherton's webpage promoting the show. Reception is from 5:30 to 7:30 today. Show will be up until June 1st, 2012.
My photograph Bozo & Bozette At Point Reyes, California is in the show.
And to those of you who have bought my book Bozo In Love, thank you so much for your financial support. It puts a roof over my head, gas in my car and food in my belly.
And for those of you who are creeped out by clowns, I hear you. I know a lot of people hate clowns. I understand.
Can I interest us you perhaps in a flame spiral book or a hoop dancing book or perhaps a nice CD of soothing music. (Shameless promotional grin.)
Come by tonight. It's a great show Etherton Gallery has juried.
And Happy Friday The Thirteen. It's usually my lucky day.
I've been saying this for years. Decades. It's not sore grapes on my part. I make money. Some. I just wish it was any type of grape. Just something grape-like: tasty, sweet, refreshing, with real fiber and good for you too. But no. It's not. Contemporary Art isn't good for you anymore.
One point Morley does explicitly makes in this great 60 Minutes piece is that this is where the super-rich, the .01%, or the .001%, spend their extra cash.
Christ, Daddy Warbucks, donate half of what you spend in Miami to your local Salvation Army, will you?
Did that art dealer just use the word 'organic?' Shoot me now.
It's shameful. Truly shameful. And this is coming from a reasonably successful artist. Me.
Watch the piece at this link.
Best quote from an art dealer: "This is theatre. This is all theatre."
Yes it is. Very bad theatre from The Art World. Very good TV from Morley Safer.
"Miller's Spiral, Sonoran Desert, Arizona" (c) 2012 Stu Jenks
"Bear Butte, South Dakota"
All images (c) 2012 Stu Jenks
I like to talk. Ask anyone. I'm not going to say much here. Here's a wikipedia excerpt about the place.
"Human artifacts have been found on or near Bear Butte that date back 10,000 years, indicating a long and continuous interest in the mountain.The Cheyenne and Lakota people have maintained a spiritual interest in Bear Butte from their earliest recorded history.
Notable visitors like Red Cloud, Crazy Horse, and Sitting Bull made pilgrimages to the site. In 1857, a council of many Indian nations gathered at Bear Butte to discuss the growing presence of white settlers in the Black Hills.
Violating a treaty of 1868, George Armstrong Custer led an expedition to the Black Hills region in 1874, and according to custom he camped near Bear Butte. Custer verified the rumors of gold in the Black Hills, and Bear Butte then served as an easily identifiable landmark for the rush of invading prospectors and settlers into the region. Indian reaction to the illegal movements of whites into the area was intense and hostile. Ultimately the government reneged on its treaty obligations regarding the Black Hills and instead embarked on a program to confine all northern Plains tribes to reservations.
Ezra Bovee homesteaded on the southern slopes of the mountain, and by the time of World War II, he and his family were the legal owners of the site. In the spring of 1945, the Northern Cheyenne received permission from Bovee to hold a ceremony at Bear Butte to pray for the end of World War II. The Cheyenne found that the Bovee family welcomed their interest in the mountain, and over the years the Bovees continued to encourage native religious ceremonies.
By the mid-1950s Ezra Bovee was attempting to stir up interest in making Bear Butte a national park. After his death, his family continued the effort. When federal interest in the project waned, the state government in Pierre took action, and Bear Butte became a state park in 1961 and was registered as a National Historic Landmark in 1965.
Frank Fools Crow, the Lakota ceremonial chief (d. 1989), made pilgrimages to Bear Butte throughout his lifetime. Fools Crow taught racial harmony not just between whites and Indians, but among all the peoples of the world. He believed the Lakota should never sell the Black Hills. A bust and plaque in front of the education center at Bear Butte State Park honor Fools Crow’s efforts." - Wikipedia.
Image: "Queen Esther Baptist Church, Lancaster, Virginia" (c) 2011 Stu Jenks (Just down River Road from Victoria's house. Love that luscious red carpet. And for you nocturnals out there, it was handheld. Rare for me.)
In this time of making photos on iPhones and Macbook Pros and only looking on screens, I forget I'm a old-school guy. I make a 8 1/2 x 11 work print on archival paper of EVERY image I make. EVERY one. It's the only way, for me, to accurately check for color shift, density, composition, etc. I really like my iPad screen but it's no way to make a good print.
And I have hundreds, if not thousands, of work prints artist proofs at my studio.
If you see an image of mine on The StuBlog or on my old website or on the Fezziwig Press Store or in any of my books, there's a beautiful small print in a box somewhere, perhaps with your name on it. And since I'm organized, I can find it.
Many of you can't afford my larger prints. I understand. I don't have an extra 50 or 100 lying around either. But I do have an extra $20 for stuff I really like.
So if you see an image of mine on any of my sites or in any of my books and you want it, it's yours for $25, shipping, handling and tax included. (I believe in paying taxes, sales and otherwise.)
Just email me at my facebook page or through the StuBlog or at stujenks@gmail.com, and tell me what print you would like or just pull the jpeg and send that to me.
I was just watching the Tarhells lose today in basketball, working on images at my computer when I thought, 'I bet people don't realize I have boxes of work prints here.'
You all do now.
Love and light,
Stu
p.s. Ignore the catagories belows. The computer went wacky. Another reason why I prefer a print in the hand as opposed to an image in The Cloud.
