Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

"Geranium at Night" (c) 2007

"Geranium at Night" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[For Cathy, taken on her front porch. A five second exposure. No major photo-shopping, just a bit more of Selective Color Red.]

"Passage" (c) 2007 Cathy Spann

"Passage" (c) 2007 Cathy Spann

[Another image of The Man With The Krispy Kreme Hat, and yes, I am that close to the train. Again, Cathy's concept. I was simply the model.]

"It's A Coming..." (c) 2007 Cathy Spann

"It's A Coming..." (c) 2007 Cathy Spann

[Taken a block from my studio. Cathy's concept. I'm just the model. I believe the best portrait ever taken of me. It looks and feel like me, and it's much more than that. An amazing visual story. What's coming? What is he waiting for? Why Fiber Arts Magazine? Why the hat? Is that the train? Mystery coming in many glorious forms.]

"Flame Flower" (c) 2007

"Flame Flower" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"Daisies for Blacksburg, Virginia" (c) 2007

"Daisies for Blacksburg, Virginia" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[This image was taken in the foothills of the Santa Catalina Mountains, north of Tucson, last Saturday, perhaps around the time that Seung-Hui Cho was purchasing his second handgun.

My prayers and love go out to all those who were touched by this horrible tragedy in Blacksburg; the parents of the Dead, the children of the Dead, the frightened, the hurt, the injured, the tramatized. May healing occur for all of them and for all of us.

I also plead and pray that we place blame where it is belongs, not at the feet of the police or with the administation of Virginia Tech, but with the one person, who apparently with premeditation and volition commited these murders.

Seung-Hui Cho.

Lastly, a brief commentary:

I don't believe in Absolute Safety. This, I believe, is a specifically American delusion. Ask most people in the developing world, in Africa, in South America, in China, if they believe they can be protected ABSOLUTELY from harm, and they will, at best, look at you with puzzlement; at worst, laugh at you. Ask any poor kid in Compton, any adult child of alcoholics in Iowa, any old woman whose next door neighbors are crack addicts in Crack Central in Tucson and you will likely get a similiar response.

The World, as I see it, has always been a wondrously odd dicotomy of healing and hurt, comfort and cruelty, beauty and ugliness, love and resentment, peace and conflict, Heaven and Hell. And to expect otherwise is to wish to live in a shopping mall.

All I can do is be the best man I can be, be awake enough to avoid most danger, give love freely, let go of control, create some truth and beauty, and to try and leave the World a bit better than I found. That's pretty much it. A tall order granted, but so worth the effort.

As Joseph Campbell once said, 'Lean toward the Light.' I pray for us all to move to the Light, whatever that means to you, and to bring a bit of it back, to ourselves and to our community.

Love, light and luck,

Stu]

"A Thistle on Soldier's Trail" (c) 2007

"A Thistle on Soldier's Trail, Catalina Mountains, Arizona (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

"Dirty Teri of The Copper Queens" (c) 2007

"Dirty Teri of The Copper Queens" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[The Copper Queens lost to The Vice Squad, last night. They are an expansion team, the fourth team, now, of Tucson Roller Derby. Dirty Teri is a seasoned veteran of Roller Derby in Tucson. A great jammer, pivot and all- around fine player. Let's wish the new Copper Queens luck this year.]

"Swamp Lilies on Easter Sunday" (c) 2007

[These are wild Swamp Lilies, just west of Charleston, South Carolina, in a wetland behind my old friend Bo's house. Bo was the best man at my wedding in 1984. The marriage didn't last but our friendship has only deepened over the years. I don't see him or Cathy, his wife, nearly enough but Bo and I do talk on the phone once a month or there abouts. He is a very good man, a newspaperman at the Charleston paper, an avid canoer, a talented poet as well. They have two twin boys at the University of South Carolina. And Cathy and Bo have been happily married for almost 25 years. I spent the night as their place just last weekend, and photographed these lilies literally fifty feet from their back door on Easter Sunday. These were four lilies of dozens that were blooming under the tall pines that morning. I had some coffee with Bo and Cathy, walked the dog with them, ate some Easter chocolate from a basket that Cathy made for me, and then got back on the road to head back to Augusta, for the final round of the Masters. I wish I could have stayed longer. I surely do.]

"Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, GA" (c) 2007

[Ebenezer Baptist Church, Atlanta, Georgia: The home parish of Martin Luther King Sr. and Jr.]

"The Central Arizona Project at Twin Peaks" (c) 2007

"The Central Arizona Project at Twin Peaks, Just West of Tucson" (c) 2007 Stu Jenks

[The drought is just entering its second decade. A relatively new reservoir in Hermosillo, Sonora, Mexico is now dry. The levels at the Arva Valley Aquifer, even with the recharge from the CAP, are starting to drop. The long range predictions say less Winter rain and more Summer heat. And more and more people are moving to Tucson every day.

We, in Tucson, have been generally living the Good Life as far as water is concerned for a good long while. We've had a huge aquifer to draw from for years, and most of the wells around town are tasty and clean, with only a few tainted wells to the south. Phoenix, to the north, has been drinking crap water from the Central Arizona Project (CAP) for years. They tapped out the Gila and Salt Rivers years ago, forcing them to drink from the Big Concrete Ditch that brings water hundreds of miles from the Colorado River. But not us Tucsonans. We drank CAP water for all of a month. It torn up our pipes and infrastructure, making our tap water orange and we stopped drinking that junk water right quick. Instead we now force-pump it through sand into the aquifer to blend with the good stuff.

No, we Tucsonans have been living high on the water hog for decades. That is, until now.

It's not a crisis yet, but many experts say around 2010, it will begin to be one. Water shortages and probably no end to the drought.

Too many people in too small a place, all of it in The High Sonoran Desert. Was bound to happen sooner or later.

Real estate is overpriced now in Tucson. Land speculators came through a couple years ago, inflated the price of all the homes. But something tells me that you'll be able to get a screaming deal on the 2000 square footer in the year 2050. You'll just need a rain barrel out back.]