Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

"#333: Deadlock Doe" (c) 2007

[Number 333 of The Furious Truckstop Waitresses: Ms. Deadlock Doe]

David Aguirre's Letter to the Editor of The Tucson Weekly regarding MOCA: 3/29/07

It's Time for New Leadership at MOCA

Searching the Internet to re-read Tim Vanderpool's Feb. 22 article ("Getting Toole'd," Currents) regarding the serial evictions of Toole Shed artists instigated by MOCA executive director Anne-Marie Russell, I came across Pamela Portwood's July 4, 2002, article "ReTooled: Toole Shed Artists Celebrate a Decade of Downtown Revitalization."

Striking, the contrast of where that corner of Toole Avenue was, and the sad state of where it is now. What happened?

I thought the "Getting Toole'd" article captured Russell's personal style perfectly. When asked about the artist evictions at a recent committee meeting, Russell said that it wasn't she who was at fault; it was the founders of MOCA. When questioned further, she changed her mind and said it was the MOCA board of directors that was responsible for the evictions. She also blamed those who don't like contemporary art, which to her seems to mean the same thing as not liking her management of MOCA.

It's no great leap to think that MOCA is in need of new leadership. When the Toole Shed debacle finally exploded onto the media level, I wasn't surprised. MOCA is chumming up with power players on the backs of evicted artists, losing what's left of earlier MOCA grassroots support.

What happened to all the cool and inspiring exhibitions that Elizabeth Cherry, former director of MOCA, was creating? Why was Cherry ousted, and who was behind it? The exhibitions were never the same after she left. I was recently in a meeting with the city's real estate chief when he mentioned that there was a split in the arts community, referencing MOCA as the source of information. A split? Surprise to me. So what's going on?

I think we've been had by Russell, who first floated the idea of a split in the arts community during the last few months. She recently emerged to offer a remedy to the "split." She wants to bring in someone, say, Eric Abrams, a local developer, to take the lead in developing a section of Toole Avenue. OK. I attended a meeting recently where Abrams and Russell did most of the talking, and it felt like the fox wanting to help out with securing the henhouse.

The only fragmented arts community is the one created by MOCA's ongoing insensitivity (or perhaps, one should say cruelty) to the inherited daughter that is the Toole Shed. Bad management is a very big part of the problem. Tucson truly needs a successful Museum of Contemporary Art, but ... this museum, with this leader? MOCA's old 3,000-square-foot exhibition space remains dusty and dark while the aspiring Dinnerware Contemporary Arts Gallery has to look for a new space. Could the problem not be more obvious?

The MOCA exhibition space does not need that much work to satisfy code requirements and certainly is not a cause to start kicking out the Toole Shed's artists. Now we have a new MOCA touted as Concept MOCA, but what is that? It's the MOCA gift shop with a never-changing art exhibit (oh, I mean permanent collection). A gift shop by any other name would taste as saccharine.

Now, I've heard that MOCA has created a splinter group called Friends of Toole Avenue. It has the ring of Bush's "Clear Skies Initiative," which allows for more polluted skies, or in this case, less art and more of a trickle-down approach toward artists, MOCA-style.

David Aguirre

"The Virgin of Tombstone" (c) 2007

"The Virgin of Tombstone" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[I was on my way to Bisbee yesterday, to drop off some prints at the Pan Terra Gallery, when just after the tourist trap of Tombstone, I needed to pee. A combination of a lot of morning coffee and an somewhat enlarged prostate. TMI, I know. Bisbee's close but why wait, I thought. I took the Elfrida road just to the east of Tombstone and began to look for a place. I past my usual pee spot on these trips and headed down the road a few more hundred yards. Stopped, got out, did my business. Then I noticed the two shrines a hundred feet away. Grabbed the D-30 and walked over. I took some time there, took a few images, lite a few candles for family and friends, said a few prayers. Then just as I was getting ready to leave, a young Hispanic woman stopped to check the belts in her aging nondescript white sedan. We exchanged a couple of words, a smile or two. She said she was fine, belts are fine. I'd finished my shoots. My candles were already lite. I said another silent prayer and walked back to my truck. As I sat in the cab and reviewed what I had taken on the small screen on the back of my camera, I looked up to see the woman opening the gate to one of the shrines and lighting a candle of her own, spending a little time there herself. I smiled, put away the Canon and started the truck. The woman got back into her car, and we both made our way back to the Tombstone road.]

(Images: top to bottom; "The Virgin of Tombstone" & "St. Martin of Tombstone")

"Love's Right Eye With Glasses" (c) 2007

"Love's Right Eye With Glasses" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"Pole, West Coast of New Zealand" (c) Ben Heaven

"Pole, West Coast, New Zealand" (c) 2007 Ben Heaven

"Milford, Dawn, New Zealand" (c) 2007 Ben Heaven

"Cocoraque Butte, Arizona" (c) 2007

"Cocoraque Butte, Ironwood National Monument, AZ" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"The Sun at Cocoraque Butte, Ironwood National Monument, AZ" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"Rock at Cocoraque Butte, Ironwood National Monument, AZ (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[From yesterday's deep hike into the Ironwood National Forest, an area of 'death playas', illegal paths, and old or not-so-old petrogylphs. (The dates '1921' and '1887' were etched into some rocks at the Butte, along with the Hohokam images of men, big horns and the Sun.)  Took some images, played a song or two on the mandolin, saw my first Gila Monster in the wild (The boy simply disappeared before I could get my camera out.) First sunburn of 2007. A place of isolation, and full silence. A place where the Gods can easily be heard.]

"Furious Truckstop Waitresses vs The Iron Curtain" (c) 2007

[From top to bottom: "Deadlock Doe of FTW", "Peaches Rodriguez as a Lead Jammer", "Peaches & the Pack", "The Furious Truckstop Waitresses' Blockers Chanting", "Sloppy Flo as a Jammer", "Flo and Doe before their Introductions", "The Hammer & Sickle of The Iron Curtain"] (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

(P.S.: FTW won the bout)

"Milford Sound, New Zealand" (c) Ben Heaven

[Another image from Ben Heaven from his recent trip to New Zealand to see family]

"Cathy Peppering an Egg" (c) 2007

[Hotel Congress, Saturday Morning. Breakfast at The Cup. I had a Turkey Chorizo and Provolone cheese omelet (which you can partly see in the reflection of the pepper shaker's lid). Cathy had a Short Stack and a single egg. Coffee all around. Note: Double-click to make the image larger and notice the pepper in its freefall to the egg. Cool, eh?]

"Kotukumoana: (Sea of Herons)" (c) 2007 Ben Heaven

["Kotukumoana (Sea of Herons), New Zealand" by the English photographer Ben Heaven. Hot off the digital press from Ben. And Ben and his wife recently had their first child. Send prayers and praise their way.]