"Garden Of Air Delights by Flam Chen (with The Missing Parts) at Barrio Brewing Company's Tea Room, May 17th, 2012, Tucson, Arizona" (c) 2012 Stu Jenks
Flam Chen playing with their food.
Would have liked to have tasted that fiery dessert but I was busy at the time.
Thanks to Paul for the all access pass, and to the owners and managers of Barrio Brewing for letting me shoot from behind the bar.
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 taken a number of good photographs of my studio, but none are better than this one taken by Jeff Smith, last Maundy Thursday.
Three tracks from 'Deaths & Injuries' were recorded at BR-549.
Thanks, Jefe. You are a very good man and a very good artist.
A gathering to celebrate the release of Stu's new CD "Deaths & Injuries" on Maundy Thursday, April 5th, 2012, at 549 N. 7th Ave, Tucson, Arizona.
I will be performing a short musical set from 8:30 to 9:00 p.m. Refreshments will be provided. I promises to entertain.
As an Episcopalian by birth (and partly by faith), Maundy Thursday is my Christmas, the night Jesus gave his final commandment, to love one another. Seems important to me.
I'll be performing a song or two from the CD, old mountain spirituals, punk rock songs, and sea shanties.
Please come if you can. It won't be dull. And all are invited. This is not a private affair.
Again, the performance will be from 8:30 to 9:00 on the night.
And I know many who read this blog are nowhere near Tucson. Wish you were closer. Wish you were here.
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.
On the advice of counsel, (that counsel being Mary Ann Harris and Charles de Lint), I'm letting the novel sit for a while before I go back to revise, edit and fix it. Charles suggested to start another novel. Good idea. I have another novel in mind, but instead I'm going back to a book I put down while I was writing the novel: Dementia Reds, the memoir documenting my mother's final journey into dementia and death, and my sister's succumbing to her breast cancer. I left the book after I had written two funerals but not the third. Just glancing at the document now, I really don't have much more to write. (Fingers crossed. I said the same thing about the novel.)
I left Dementia Reds in the Fall of 2011 for a lot of reasons. I was still pretty angry at some people in Virginia and North Carolina, I was in the midst of selling the tear-down house in Raleigh, and there was that pesky novel and all its characters running around in my head. But now, I need for the novel to steep, like a pot of Earl Gray. And I'm not so mad at the vultures and the overly-righteous from my ancestral South. I mostly just miss the hell out of my sister Pamela.
So thanks, Charles and Mary Ann. I hear your counsel. Oh, and on a business note, Dementia Blues is my only book that's selling. Give the people what they want. To buy.
Love and light,
Stu.
p.s. The above image was taken while Pamela was still alive, when I visited her near the end of her life. I got a sweet free upgrade on that rental car, receiving a hot red Mustang from Enterprise. Pamela and I had fun, punching it hard on the Beltline on our way to chemo. And below are pics of my sister and mother when they were young and healthy.
Photo: EPA from The Telegraph.
By no means do I expect anyone but serious political junkies like me to watch all 18 minutes of this video, but I post this to make a point.
Often I resist being too political on the StuBlog, out of fear it'll hurt my business, but my income from all my creations is way down anyway, so what could it hurt?
(An aside: I may have to use my LISAC and do intakes and run treatment groups for unremorseful felons again. I'm happy I can make money doing intakes and running groups but I really hate the work. Most felons have no desire to be in recovery. Hell, they don't even want to stop beating their wives and girlfriends, much less cut down on their drinking and drug use. It's why I left the treatment field in 2009, but I might need to go back, to pay the rent. I don't want to, but you often have to do things you don't want to do. Point is I'm going broke anyway, being an artist, photog, writer, musician, whatever, so I might as well let fly with my strong political opinions cause it can't hurt book, CD and print sales. Sales already suck. (Except for Dementia Blues.) I'm not feeling sorry for myself. I'm just facing reality. So why not? It'll be fun.)
So here's my main point:
We Democrats nominated the wrong person in 2008. Hillary Clinton should be The President of the United States, not Barack Obama. Barack needs to be liked way too much and due to what I believe are unresolved issues around his father, he acts passively when he should lead with passion and conviction.
Hillary Clinton would be a great President and it's probably too late. In 2016, she probably won't run. She may want to retire from public life. She might see herself as too old as well.
But I'm having serious buyer's remorse. Have for a year or two. So much so that I'm no longer a Democrat. I'm a registered Independent now.
And just so I piss off everyone, Rick Santorum is a crazy man, a religious bigot, a nut case. He needs to go home. Newt is a con man who really doesn't want to be President. He just wants to make money out of his meanness. He needs to go home too. Ron Paul is consistent, true, but Crazy GrandPa forgets the Constitution has been amended a good number of times since 1787. (This can be said for most Republicans in Congress and around the country.) And Mitt Romney is a rich man who has little compassion for the working class and for the poor. And he appears to be missing a screw. Many rich people are compassionate and kind. Mitt ain't one of them. Plus he's as phony as a three-dollar-bill.
So watch Hillary and see real leadership in action. Minute 16:20 and on is truly great statesmanship.
So keeping fighting the good fight. Say truth to power and all of that. But say it with love. If you can. (I can only about half the time. I often say "I'm a nice man until I'm not") And know that all of you, even the violent felons, are in my prayers. OK, I pray for my friends and family first, but I eventually get around to praying for the jerks.
Love, and light,
Stu
The first draft of the novel is done!!! It came in at 149,000 words, 552 pages in my document. Yeaaaa! I can't tell you how good it feels. The ending made me cry, as I hope it does you. (Last word in the novel, which won't change in revision: Sighs.) I want to jump right back to the beginning and start revisions, but Mary Ann suggests I take more than just a couple days off. OK. I'll take off three or four days. LOL. But then it's fixing this and revising that, then off to the editors. And I have ideas for the next novel in this series, too. I have some pretty great characters, I think, and I want to see what they will do next. But first things first. Get this novel to print.
One serious note: It took about a year to write this novel, but it almost didn't get done. With Mary and Pamela dying and all, I didn't work on it for about six weeks and it was so hard to get my momentum back. But I did. But it was difficult. If you are working on a novel or a large work, I recommend you plow through, even if the field is frozen. I've been told I'm very lucky to have gotten back on track.
Speaking of track, good luck to Danica Patrick tomorrow in the Daytona 500 and in the rest of Sprint Cup and Nationwide races this season. I might just have to go up to PHX next Saturday to watch her race.
By the way, did I mention I finished the freaking first draft of the novel?
Yeaaaaaaaaa!
It's a photographic cliche to shoot doors yet sometimes cliches are all right. In this case, these photographs are potential choices for images beginning chapters for a book.
And Happy Valantine's Day, y'all.
"Adobe LEDs, Tucson, Arizona" (c) 2012 Stu Jenks
Not that it's a big deal, but I'm heading toward the end of the first draft of the novel. Three more big things need to happen to my characters, including one character's mother dies of dementia. (Wonder where that idea came from.) And thanks to two writer people friends who will remain nameless (for now) for pushing me to finish the first draft before I do any revisions at all to the novel. Y'all are so right about that and so encouraging. I can't thank you enough. Now back to work.
