Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

Circles & Spirals: Stu Jenks' Newsletter #11: August 31st, 2022

"Abandon All Hope, Joe McFall, Hickory Art Museum, North Carolina." (c) Image captures by Stu Jenks, 2022.

1) Before I get into a commentary about Outsider Art and Art in general, a health update: 

Alexa is slowly on the mend. It's going to take a while. 

I'm slowly on the mend. Looks like it's going to take a while for me too.

I'm having nerve pain and gastrointestinal issues, post-radiation on my prostate area, more than I had during the entire 8 weeks of my cancer treatment. I didn't expect that. My lovely urologist Juan in Tucson says it's going to take a few weeks for me to heal, that all of this is normal. My anxiety lessened with those hopeful words from Juan, but the pain and discomfort has not. I'm two weeks out of radiation. I'm not going to freak out until October if it all still hurts the same as today. They say 2 to 6 weeks. Guess that's what it is. Acceptance doesn't mean approval. 

2) Now, some art criticism: 

Included in this newsletter are image captures of Joe McFall's amazing piece "Abandon All Hope", which is on permanent display at the Hickory Art Museum, here in North Carolina. They have an extensive collection of what they call "Folk Art", which I tend to call "Outsider Art". Traditional, this work is made by not formally trained artists who have a certain vision about the world, sometimes religious, sometimes humorous, sometimes fueled by a bit of mental health and substance abuse issues. Notable among these are Vollis Simpson, Horace Pippin, Morace Hirshfield and many others. 

At the Hickory Art Museum, I learned this, or rather I thought this:

There is also bad and exploitative folk/outsider art. Much of what I saw there felt like a con. Sorry but it did.  Some work was amazing too, but other stuff felt like some people were just trying to cash in on the popularity of people like Vollis Simpson, who late in his life, did make some serious coin from his work (as he should have, because he's brilliant), but much of what I saw felt more like a way to make money and less about projecting your artistic vision. Except some pieces, and the work of Joe McFall.

And, not surprisingly, when I got home and searched the internet, I discovered, again, that a lot of this Outsider Art is bringing huge prices at art auctions. 

Let's talk about Joe McFall for a second.

Not much is known of him, and I searched a lot. No wikipedia page. Only auction house tallies of his work sold, not by him but by art collectors. Joe does or did have some serious substance abuse issues. "Abandon All Hope" was created after he got out of a substance abuse detox center. And it appears he was originally from Tennessee. That's about it. I could have found a curator to talk to at the Hickory Art Museum who probably knew more, but I didn't that day. There was a little info on the label for the piece but not much. 

I really love this piece. It shows his views on addiction, both his own and of the world at large. It shows the seriousness and consequences of addictions, but also the humor of living an addict's life. It's a complicate piece and I really liked it. Addiction and recovery is a complicated thing. Just is.

However, what disturbed me, is it appears, by looking at how much money his pieces are bringing at auctions and also, by the inauthentic quality of the some of the work I saw in Hickory, that art dealers are taking advantage of addicts, alcoholics, and mentally ill people, and that pisses me off. Or maybe it's my mood regarding my cancer. Shit, I don't know, but it all smelled bad. 

Where I am truly naive is, art dealers, and art business people have been screwing over artists for centuries, whether they be relatively-sane creative folk like me, or people who have some serious mental health and/or addiction issues. I guess I just should accept it, but it still sucks. And I'm sure Mr. McFall was happy to make money off his work when it initially sold, and I'm going to guess the Hickory Art Museum did not taking advantage of Joe and paid him a fair price.

I, as an artist, have only been majorly fucked with a few times, i.e. aggressive haggling of prices for my work; reneging on the buying of my work after delivery; the stealing of images off the internet; once not getting work back from a gallery; small things like that. I've been lucky to have two great art rep in my life, and really good people I have worked with and who have shown and promoted my work. I'm grateful to all of those good folk. But it still bugs me when artists are taken advantage of by people with money and power.

My mother Mary Jenks once corrected me when I said, "Money is the root of all evil." "No, son," she said, "It is the LOVE of money that is the root of all evil, not the money itself."

Greed and avarice. An old story that never goes away.

This artistic missive here may be tainted with the penile and intestinal pain I'm experiencing now. I don't know. I do know I saw some very good art and some just terrible folk/outsider art at the Hickory Art Museum the other day. And I believe that people like Joe McFall may have been exploited in the past. Not the Hickory people doing it, but the art auction people and the wealthy people who bought his and others' work for a song.  

Here endeth the rant. 

3) Saw some great Grandma Moses paintings in Roanoke, VA recently, as well as a 'perfect' painting by Rockwell Kent from 1943. They are here as well on this post.

4) Remember to registar to vote and to vote in November. Truly our democracy depends on it. And don't fret. Trump will be indicted and convicted for probably a small felony. Proving intent is not necessary. They have him dead to rights. He'll probably cop a plea. He will not be President again, because of this conviction. Now there probably will be certain counties in America I might not want to drive in, given my bumper stickers, but I don't fucking care. I'm a liberal with a handgun and they don't scare me. Most bullies are cowards. 

As I said in January, 2017: There are more of us, Independents, Democrats and reasonable Republicans, then there are of them, the greedy, lying, avaricious fascists. We just need to fucking vote.

It's Roe-vember, baby. 

Love you all, 

Stu

All image captures by Stu Jenks (c) 2022 Stu Jenks, and Grandma Moses, Rockwell Kent, and their estates. 

"Hoop Dancing with a Vollis Simpson Whirligig, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, NC" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks. 

Circles and Spirals: Stu Jenks' Newsletter #2: 4/7/22

Hey everyone,

1) Went to SECCA recently (The Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art in Winston-Salem) and saw an amazing show entitled. Black@Intersection: Contemporary Black Voices in Art, curated by Duane Cyrus, a prof at UNC-G. So much great work from all over the world. One of my favorites is "Cupid" by Wolly McNair, out of Charlotte. (A jpeg of this is above) I reached out to Wolly and he is a very sweet and spiritual man. A delight to chat with him on Instagram.

I also went to the Nasher Museum of Art over at Duke a few weeks ago and saw a show about North Carolina Artists Today, many if not most were Black artists.

In three words, It's fucking time.

When I was in art school the big thing was, "Let's promote women artists. The time of white guys only making art and getting it seen should be over." And for the most part it is. It appears in my absence from North Carolina since the early 80's, they have decided it's time to promote artists of color and women artists too, beside just the white guys. I couldn't be happier.

Except for this one little thing. The work by these younger artists is so good and so thoughtful, it makes me want to stop making stuff. That feeling only lasted a day or two, but in the back of my mind, do we really need more me? Perhaps yes, perhaps no, but I'm happy as a clam in cool sand that the art world is including the other 70% of the American population now, not just the white guys.

2) Went to the Dean Dome to watch the NCAA Championship game, but mostly just to see the building from the inside. It is amazing to sit in the stands, for free no less. I left early in the first half of the game, for a number of reasons, a) I really couldn't see the game that well on the four big screens, b) I could hear well either, and c) I had a gut feeling we were going to lose, and I could tell that if UNC lost, it might get ugly here. Not by the students but from the middle aged guys who came that night, who were already angry it appears, I don't know why. I drove home to Greensboro and watched the second half on my TV. Carolina lost to Kansas but it was OK. We beat Duke in the semifinal game and Hubert Davis and all the guys had a great end of their season. Fun fact: I'm now a born again U of A fan. I'm loving me some Tommy Lloyd. Excited about the future of Arizona basketball. And of course I love the Zags. A good year of college basketball. Now onto the NBA. Go Suns.

3) Being poor sucks. Really sucks. I get a small retirement and I'm working part time being a Legal Zoom Monitor but I don't make that much money really. And image and sculpture sales are way down, but I'm still making a little coin from the music online. I'm just poorer than I've been since the 1980's. I have everything I need but I'm not sure where I'm going to get the money to print the new Step Zero book. And I need new glasses. And new shoes. And a tune up for the truck. Heavy sigh. I know as we get older, we live more on fixed incomes and such, but Jeez Louise. I'm not trying to manipulate anyone into giving me money. Just being transparent about what it's like to be a creative person in my late 60s and not having a lot of extra cash and not selling that much. And baby needs a new pair of shoes or rather hiking boots. But if I talk about it, I'll be less depressed about it. I know that. And it reminds me to be grateful for what I have. Unlike the Talking Heads song, this is my beautiful house. This is my beautiful wife.

4) Speaking of beauty, about half of all the houses on our little street have dogwood trees. The street's ablaze with white and pink flowers. It's really nice. I've been more of a Fall and a Winter person in the past, but I think I get Spring now. The trees and flowers and birds are waking up and having sex with each other, so to speak. The robins and bunnies in our backyard certainly are. It's sweet. I've actually named two of the bunnies, who have scars on their bodies so I can identify them. Bruno and Roberta, They are hard to photograph but I'll try and get some pics of them for you in the future.

5) and lastly, I've visited an undisclosed part of the Haw River a couple of times, harvesting some dead Red Cedar wood for my Late Stage Capitalism sculpture series. Don't think I'm on private property, hopeful it's county or state property and I'm just salvaging dead wood and not that much of it, but I do see those no trespassing signs way over there and it doesn't make me happy. I'm positively Native about land ownership. It's good to have a little piece of land to live on and to ranch or farm it, but to individually own large tracts of land for no other purpose then to make money, drives me a little nuts. 42% of the state of Arizona is owned by the federal government, which means I can walk and hike almost all of that. (If you add the AZ Land Trust Land, it's way over 50% I'm sure.) I know I'm on the east coast where white men have owned land, property, women and Africa-Americans for centuries. I know the history. Women? Less ownership for the past 50 years. Blacks? Well, lynching doesn't happen anymore, but we don't get points for that. I digress. No Trespassing signs just piss me off, particularly when I'm in the middle of nowhere, near a river, having walked through spider webs and stickers to get there. I'm a Westerner, a desert rat. I know I'm not in Kansas or the Sonoran Desert anyway. Just trying to find my way in a land that really isn't my home. Gathering four or five cedar sticks, then bringing them home, cutting, sanding and oiling them, and making art from them, helps me get through. Makes me quite happy. And I like giving walking sticks away to people I love too. It does not suck. And boy doesn't my workshop/garage smell great after I"ve been stripping some cedar bark. Lovely.

Life is good, unless I start to think about it too much, but it's good if I feel it. Just feel the feelings and let it go and all that good shit. But that does work. I'm feeling it right now and in the here and now, it's all good.

I have love and life and dogwoods. 

Love you all

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning.

Stu

The Extended Family Series wall pieces are now for sale! (Shipping cost included in the prices of all the art work)

“Vollis Simpson, Red Oak, North Carolina”, 63 inches tall. © Stu Jenks 2021

The Extended Family Series wall pieces are now for sale!

Shipping is included in the sale price of all art work. I know they are pricey, but due to the odd shape of the boxes, shipping is expensive.

All pieces are signed, dated and titled. Some can be used as walking sticks but most are wall pieces that can be easily hung from a wall. These art pieces represents people who are important to me: traditional extended family members, close and not-so-close friends, and people I love and admire, both living and dead, fictional and real.

Just scroll through my site to see the work, or go to the Categories listed off to the left. Look for the group entitled 'Extended Family Series.'

I really want this work to find homes. I also hope to show these pieces in galleries and museums in the future, but that's up in the air right now, due to COVID and such. Mostly I want to sell and mail these to good people who will be happy to have them hanging in their homes.

In this post, I've put up a small sampling of the work. I've produced over a 100 of these guys. This is just to give you a taste.

Thanks, y'all, for your love and financial support. I appreciate you more than you know. You help put gas in my truck, food on our table and a roof over our heads. You really do.

And you also put a smile on my face. That ain't nothing either.

Love and light, Stu.

Detail of “Gandalf, Hornbeam Wood, North Carolina” 61 inches tall, (c) Stu Jenks 2018.

 

 

“Frederick Douglass, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” 86 inches tall, © Stu Jenks 2020

 

 

“Stacey Abrams, Hornbeam Wood, Virginia-North Carolina State Line” 57 inches tall, (c) Stu Jenks 2021

 

 

“Legs For Days (Alexa Jenks), Aspen Wood, Arizona” 58 inches tall” © Stu Jenks 2020

 

“Norman Smith, Saguaro Ribs, Arizona” (c) Stu Jenks 2019

 

“Amanda Gorman, Beech Wood, North Carolina” 56 inches tall. (c) Stu Jenks 2021

 

“Gay Smith, Aspen Wood, Arizona” 59 inches tall. © Stu Jenks 2020

 

“Abraham Lincoln, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” 48 inches tall, © Stu Jenks 2020

 

 

“Dennis The Homeless Man, Desert Agave, Arizona” 59 inches tall. © Stu Jenks 2019

 

 

“Malcolm X, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2020, 54 inches tall.

 

 

“Galadriel/Cate Blanchett, Tulip Poplar, Virginia” © Stu Jenks 2021, 66 inches tall.

 

 

“Dean Smith, Ash Wood, North Carolina” © Stu Jenks 2021, 39 inches tall.

 

“Ida B. Wells, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2020 [Extended Family Series]

“Ida B. Wells, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” 57 inches tall, © 2020

Price: $150, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Ida B. Wells, a co-founder of the NAACP, documented in great detail the lynching in The American South in the 1890's. She was one of the first people to do so. Her books, Southern Horrors and The Red Record, were a big deal. In spite of threats to her life, she fought for racial and women's equality all her life. All hail Ida B. Wells.

#idabwells, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries.

 

“Amanda Gorman, Beech Wood, North Carolina” (c) 2021 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“Amanda Gorman, Beech Wood, North Carolina” 56 inches tall. (c) Stu Jenks 2021

Price: $195, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

Amanda Gorman is the young poet who stunned the nation with her moving words and amazing elegance at the Biden Inauguration in January. For me, it was the highlight of the ceremony.

She killed that day.

Below is the poem she recited. 

 

The Hill We Climb by Amanda Gorman.

Dr. Biden, Madam Vice President, Mr. Emhoff, Americans, and the world.

When day comes, we ask ourselves, where can we find light in this never ending shade?
The loss we carry, a sea.
We must wade.
We've braved the belly of the beast.
We've learned that quiet isn't always peace.
And the norms and notions of what just is, isn't always justice.
And yet the dawn is ours before we knew it.
Somehow we do it.
Somehow we've weathered and witnessed a nation that it isn't broken, but simply unfinished.
We, the successors of a country and the time where a skinny Black girl descended from slaves and raised by a single mother can dream of becoming president only to find herself reciting for one.
And yes, we are far from polished, far from pristine, but that doesn't mean we are striving to form a union that is perfect.
We are striving to forge our union with purpose.

To compose a country, committed to all cultures, colors, characters, and conditions of man.
And so we lift our gaze, not to what stands between us, but what stands before us
We close the divide because we know to put our future first, we must first put our differences aside.
We lay down our arms so we can reach out our arms to one another.
We seek harm to none and harmony for all.
Let the globe, if nothing else say, this is true.
That even as we grieved, we grew.
That even as we hurt, we hoped.
That even as we tired, we tried.
That we'll forever be tied together victorious.
Not because we will never again know defeat, but because we will never again sow division.
Scripture tells us to envision that everyone shall sit under their own vine and fig tree and no one shall make them afraid
If we're to live up to our own time, then victory won't lie in the blade, but in all the bridges we've made.
That is the promise to glade the hill we climb.
If only we dare it's because being American is more than a pride we inherit.
It's the past we step into and how we repair it.

We've seen a force that would shatter our nation, rather than share it.
Would destroy our country if it meant delaying democracy.
And this effort very nearly succeeded, but while democracy can be periodically delayed, it can never be permanently defeated in this truth.
In this faith we trust for while we have our eyes on the future, history has its eyes on us.
This is the era of just redemption.
We feared it in its inception.
We did not feel prepared to be the heirs of of such a terrifying hour, but within it, we found the power to author a new chapter.
To offer hope and laughter to ourselves.

So while once we asked, how could we possibly prevail over catastrophe?
Now we assert how could catastrophe possibly prevail over us?
We will not march back to what was, but move to what shall be a country that is bruised.
But whole benevolence, but bold, fierce, and free.

We will not be turned around or interrupted by intimidation because we know our inaction and inertia will be the inheritance of the next generation.
Our blunders become their burdens, but one thing is certain.
If we merged mercy with might, and might with right, then love becomes our legacy, and change our children's birthright.
So let us leave behind a country better than the one we were left.
With every breath, my bronze pounded chest.

We will raise this wounded world into a wondrous one.
We will rise from the gold limbed hills of the West.
We will rise from the wind swept to Northeast where our forefathers first realized the revolution.
We will rise from the lake-rimmed cities of the middle Western States.
We will arise from the sun baked South.
We will rebuild, reconciled and recover and every known nook over our nation.

And every corner called our country.
Our people diverse and beautiful will emerge, battered and beautiful.
When day comes, we step out of the shade of flame and unafraid, the new dawn balloons, as we free it.
For there was always light.
If only we're brave enough to see it.
If only we're brave enough to be it.

#stujenks, #amandagorman, #extendedfamilyseries

 

“Victoria Hardy, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” (c) 2019 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“Victoria Hardy, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” 58 inches tall, (c) 2019 Stu Jenks.

Price: $225, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Victoria was one of my mother Mary's most loyal and true friends. When others abandoned Mom when she contracted dementia, Victoria called her in Arizona every week, just to give her love and see how Mom was doing. Victoria is still hanging in there even though her health has not been that great of late. I look forward to the ending of COVID so I can kiss her on the cheek again. Also, my love runs strong for all the Hardy clan: Karen, Bunny, Andrew and all of them. You are part of my extended family now, along with Glenn and bRad, in the Northern Neck of Virginia.

And as Karen might say, "Have a blessed day."

#victoriahardy, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries

"Frederick Douglass, Saguaro Rib, Arizona" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“Frederick Douglass, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” 86 inches, over 7 feet tall, © 2020 Stu Jenks

 

Price: $275, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Frederick Douglass was a major leader in the American Abolitionist Movement, and from what everyone said, could give a hell of speech.

“If there is no struggle, there is no progress," he once spoke. "Those who profess to favor freedom, and yet depreciate agitation, are men who want crops without plowing up the ground. They want rain without thunder and lightning. They want the ocean without the awful roar of its many waters. This struggle may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.”

 

Rock on, Fred.

#stujenks, #frederickdouglass, #saguaro, #extendedfamilyseries

"The Epiphany Stick: Officer Eugene Goodman, Rhododendron, North Carolina" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“The Epiphany Stick: Officer Eugene Goodman, Rhododendron, North Carolina” 59 inches tall, © 2021 Stu Jenks

 

Price: $150, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Officer Goodman is the brave Capital Police officer who lead the violent insurrectionists away from our Senators during the riots in Washington on Epiphany of this year.

I'm glad my father, who voted for Nixon three times, didn't live to see what his party has become: fascistic, mendacious, greedy, selfish, traitorous.

Those Republican elected officials in Washington don't deserve the likes of Officer Goodman, but he protected them out of honor and duty nonetheless. And frankly he is the exact opposite of them: democratic with a small 'd', honest, generous, selfless, a true patriot.

#mountainlaurel, #officergoodman, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries.

“Stacey Abrams, Hornbeam Wood, Virginia-North Carolina State Line” (c) 2021 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“Stacey Abrams, Hornbeam Wood, Virginia-North Carolina State Line” (c) 2021 Stu Jenks, 57 inches tall.

Price: $175, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Stacey Abrams, and her organization Fair Fight Action, through registering over 800,000 new voters, pretty much got two Democratic Senators elected from the state of Georgia, in a special election in January 2021, and flipped the U.S. Senate. It's a huge freaking deal.

Fun fact: She is also a big science fiction fan.

What's not to like.

#extendedfamilyseries, #stujenks, #staceyabrams, #hormbeam

 

 

“Killer Mike, Hornbeam Wood, North Carolina” (c) 2020 Stu Jenks [Extended Family Series]

“Killer Mike, Hornbeam Wood, North Carolina” (c) 2020 Stu Jenks, 54 inches tall.

Price: $195, shipping included in the price. Simply contact me via my email address at [email protected] or Facebook message me, if you would like to purchase one of my pieces. Payments can be made with Paypal, Venmo or credit card with Square. All pieces are signed with its title, and can be hung from the wall. Love y'all, Stu.

 

Mike is an Atlanta rapper but he is also known for being a vocal activist on the issues of social inequality, police brutality and the systemic racism in our country. You may remember him from his tearful speech in the wake of the death of George Floyd in the Summer of 2020.

I like Mike a lot. A lot a lot.

#extendedfamilyseries, #stujenks, #hornbeam, #northcarolina #killermike.