Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press: Angel/Ghosts

August 31, 2022

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

Posted at 09:22 AM in African Americans, Angel/Ghosts, Art, Cancer, Ethics, Humor, Love, Money, North Carolina, Other Artists, Sickness & Health, Snow, Social Justice, The Sky, The South, The Woods, Trouble With The Law, Virginia, Women, Women Artists | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 03, 2022

Circles and Spirals: Stu Jenks' Newsletter #6: 6/3/2022

1) Good news, bad news. The CyberKnife radiation treatment for the tiny bit of prostate cancer I still have is unavailable and ineffective, so say the good folk at UNC Hospital in Chapel Hill. So I'll be getting old-school-hopefully-it-doesn't-tear-me-up-too-bad radiation here in Greensboro. Shit. I was really hoping to get the less invasive radiation but alas. I did hear though that Dr. Matt Manning here at Cone Hospital is one of the best radiation oncologist in the country, so I have that going for me. Fingers double crossed.

2) Went to the races in Charlotte over the Memorial Day weekend. The ARCA cars and the trucks on Friday night were something, literally shaking the ground as they passed the start-finish line on restarts. And there are some up and coming black NASCAR drivers now too, and there are some black folk in the stands in Charlotte Motor Speedway. Made me very happy to see a more diverse crowd than what you might see at the little tracks in rural Virginia. Things have changed, a little bit.

3) Reluctant capitalist plug: The ebook of the 10th anniversary edition of Step Zero is now up on Amazon. Just click this link and it'll take you there. It's free if you already have the Kindle Unlimited or $2.99 is you buy it. Baby needs a new pair of shoes, so hit those buttons. The paperback edition will be coming out soon. If you want to pre-order the book book or be put on the list for a copy, just email me. [email protected]

4) Finished up the remainder of the Arizona images from my recent trip. The Painted Desert Project in particular is one of the best public art projects I've seen in years. Real, gritty, beautiful, meaningful. You can see it if you are driving from Flagstaff to the eastern entrance of The Grand Canyon, in Gray Mountain. It is stunning.

5) I visited dead relatives over the Memorial Day weekend. Mom, Dad, & Pamela. Dad's parents and my murdered great aunt Bertie too. (To read the sad story of Aunt Bertie and her children, clink on this link). At Bertie's grave in Richmond, the candle I placed there months ago was still there. I had an extra U.S. flag with me and I placed it at her grave. She wasn't a veteran of the armed services, but she certainly was a veteran of sorts, of the violence against women. I know it's a stretch but it seemed right to decorate her grave with something. It was nice to visit Stuart, Mary and my sister in Lancaster County. Sit on the OK-God-Let's-Do-It bench. Play a couple of songs for them on the bouzouki. Walk through the woods. Reminding myself that I have forgiven them (mostly) for what they did or didn't do. It's different everything I see them. They haven't changed. They're dead, but I'm different each time. This time, I really embraced what my mother Mary Jenks did for me. Of all my family members, Mom and her mother Nannie were the only two who really got the odd little boy who was me. I really appreciate them for that. Yes, it was $125 in gas just to hang there for a hour or so, but it was worth it. Life is short.

6) So that's it for now. I'm slowing healing up from COVID. Still have some congestion but the sinus headache has mostly gone away. If you want to help me out financially, buy the new Step Zero e-book, or some music or prints or sticks or whatever. Alexa is doing well. It's hot and sticky here in Greensboro, but we have a bunch of bunnies in our backyard, and birds, birds, birds. Alexa figured out if she put vegetable oil on the bird feeder pole, it makes it so the chipmunks can't raid the birdseed. Smart woman, my wife. Love you all, Stu.

Posted at 11:27 AM in 12 Step Fiction, Angel/Ghosts, Art, Beachs, Cancer, Churches, Death, eBooks, Fantasy & Science Fiction, Fezziwig Press, Hardwood, Hope, Love, Making Money, Mountains of North Carolina, Nature, North Carolina, Photography, Spirituality, Step Zero: A Sober Love Story in 2076, Stu Jenks, The Civil War, The Ocean, The Rez, The Road, The South, The West, Travel, Trees, Tucson, Virginia, Women, Women Artists | Permalink | Comments (0)

May 23, 2022

Circles and Spirals: Stu Jenks' Newsletter #5: 5/23/2022

1) First things first. I got COVID, probably on the plane coming back from Arizona. Yeah, shit. Thank God for the anti-viral medication Paxlovid and having been vaxxed four times. Still was a rough 4 days, fever, chills, coughing, really bad sinus headaches, but today I still have a bit of brain fog, some congestion, a little bit of a cough and a mild headache. Really glad I'm not in the hospital. Really glad I'm not dead.

2) Went to visit Tucson on the 4th of May. Came back on the 12th. It was wonderful, to see old friends and to simply walk the land I know so well. Went to Coalmine Canyon at sunset, a personal spiritual place I've visited for over 35 years. It's changed some with many tourists now, many meaning any. (Back in the day, I would see no one at all.) That day, I ran into a pair of irritated German tourists who didn't know how to behave, and selfishly had to get their shoots right away, ignoring the fact that there was a guy right there, me, who might have given them some history and some warnings about the place (There are wild dogs there from time to time that will tear you up), but I didn't let them ruin the moment too bad (OK. A little). I took my shots and then I just soaked in the space. It's an amazing space. Feel free to visit, just be respectful. Included here are a few of the best shots I took. By the way, the tall massive hoodoo in the distance is called The Ghost. The place is haunted, say both the Hopi and the Navajo and me. Over the years I have felt the spirits and it's no joke. They are mostly friendly ghosts. Mostly.

3) I miss my home in the desert. A lot. From the baked eggs at The Cup Cafe to the tortillas at Le Estrella Bakery. But mostly I miss the people, my art community and my recovery community and my friends. All the above. Here in Greensboro, I'm getting to know a few people, but I lived in Tucson for over 35 years. You make a lot of friends in that time, if you're not a jerk. I can be a bit much at times but I'm not a jerk. Thanks everyone who showed me such love and kindness during my time in Tucson. Means the world. Hope to be back soon.

4) I still have a bad left leg but I was able to walk a bit in Arizona. Walking the flats near the Mustang Mountains south of Tucson was a joy. Hiking up Cathy's Fault, north of town, just hurt like a son of a bitch, but I had to go up it anyway. At the Mustangs, I drew an spiral on an anthill, for me sure, but also for two people I know who are dying of cancer, and for their friends and family. One has died, the other close to passing. It's very sad. Both are way too young. Both are way too sweet. I'm not praying for their souls. No need. In my belief system, everyone is going to Heaven or a Heaven of sorts. But I do pray for their loved ones who are left behind, grieving, sad. May all of you feel held by God, by me and by all who love you.

5) One of the most memorable moments of my trip was when I was sleeping in my car on the Hopi Rez, along the side of the road one night. It's not a big thing. No one will bother you if you nap in your car. Just lock your doors. Anyway, in the middle of the night I got up for a minute and went outside. I gazed to the south and saw the Milky Way. Not unusual to see it if you are out in the boonies, but what made me say 'wow' out loud, was seeing our galaxy stretch all the way from the Southern horizon, almost all the way to the Northern horizon. I had never seen it stretch that far north. The sky seemed both close enough to touch and a billion miles away. Marvelous. The next morning I thought of dropping in on my Hopi friends but it was way too early to do that. I took an image of their village instead. The Youvella and Kinale families and all the others, may your days be blessed. Hug the kids for me.

6) Again, got back from Tucson, safe but not sound. Pretty sure I got COVID on the plane when I sat next to someone who I believe may have been sick. Frankly 2/3 of the plane were unmasked. WTF. Anyway, I'm out and about again. Took a pic of Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair along a little-traveled train track in rural North Carolina. Went up to the Blue Ridge Parkway, to get my fix of looking-far-into-the-distance. It's good to be home in NC. It's a little odd to feel at home in two places, one in Arizona and another in North Carolina, but it's certainly better than not feeling at home at all. A lot of people are homeless too you know, and just as bad, many people don't feel like they have a home even though they have a place to live. Alexa and I am truly blessed.

7) Alexa got the COVID too, from me don't you know, but she is much better now too. We are both grateful that we didn't get that sick. She says hey.

8) So that's it for now. Thank all of you who sent prayers and good wishes on the social medias, texts, IMs and phone calls during our illnesses. Alexa and I are very happy to be on the mend. One last thing: Alexa's dad, Norman Smith, lives just down the street. Over the past week, he has dropped off fresh strawberries from his garden. As the wise man said, that does not suck. Alexa and I do live in a lovely part of the world. I know I may be overusing this word today, but we feel truly blessed. And you too. Have a blessed day. Saying that doesn't mean you are religious. It just means you are grateful.

Love, light and luck,

Stu

Posted at 11:46 AM in Angel/Ghosts, Arizona, Art, Blue Ridge Parkway, Clouds, Coalmine Canyon, Current Affairs, Faith, Flowers, Greensboro, NC, Hopi, Love, Native People, North Carolina, On The Rez, Other Artists, Prayer, Recovery, Sickness & Health, Spirals, Spirituality, The Rez, The Road, The Sky, The South, The West, The Woods, Travel, Trees, Tucson, Wildlife | Permalink | Comments (0)

December 03, 2021

Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair at the Grand Canyon

This image is one of my favorites. A perfect winter's day at the Canyon. It's also the back cover of my book Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair (The Deaths of Mary and Pamela Jenks)

Speaking of that book, a nice thing happen to me today.

I gave the PBRC book to my father-in-law Norman Smith to read. He's a highly educated gentleman, a voracious reader, and a sweetly religious man. He read the Dementia Blues book a few days ago and liked it.

"It's very well written, Stu," he said. "Thank you, Norman," I said.

High praise from a man of few words.

But this morning as he was dropping off the paper (He lives just up the street from Alexa and I and he shares his newspaper with us), he got out of his car and said:

"You did a wonderful job writing your mother's eulogy. As good if not better than the priest's. And I love the Bible passage you picked for your mother. Oh, my."

That touched me a lot. I know I'm an OK writer and I was the designated eulogist for the Jenks clan for years, because I knew how to write, how to speak, and how to not talk too long at a funeral.

But still.

It was nice to hear such kind words from the only father figure I have in my life. A very sweet moment.

(As always, if you want to buy something: books, prints, and music, you know where to find me. www.stujenks.org, here, bandcamp, CDbaby, Bookbaby, and at Amazon and Apple stores. Have a great day, y'all.)

Posted at 11:15 AM in Ancestors, Angel/Ghosts, Arizona, Art, Emotions, Good Folk, Grand Canyon, Love, Mary Jenks, National Parks, Pamela Jenks, Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Prayer, Sickness & Health, The Border, Women | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 09, 2021

Recent images from Downtown Richmond, Virginia.

Images from my recent Dia De Los Muertos trip to Virginia.

These are from the Broad Street area in Downtown Richmond.

Happily, Richmond Camera Shop still exists, except now is in Carytown away from downtown. I remember the 8mm movie boxes my Dad had, that got processed at Richmond Camera. Great that this old camera store still exists.

Also, Robert E. Lee is gone. Bye, bye.

And who doesn't like old brick and old glass from a hundred years ago. And the police sculpture is near the entrance of the downtown cop shop.

Broad Street is getting fancy again, with high end hotels, hipster apartments, and clothing boutiques. It was that way 100 years ago, then it decayed, and is now coming back. Feels a little odd though. Income inequality and the lack of a living wage from close to a majority of Americans angers me and it bugs me to see rich folk walk past the homeless and act like they are not there. That's also part of Broad Street, but I'm guessing in 1914, that happened as well.

I still love the old glass and the red brick though. Living in Tucson for decades, this old architecture is new-ish to me. I moved away from Richmond when I was 5.

It's been a long time since I've walked down Broad Street, holding my mother's hand, going to Thalhimiers Department Store to eat a club sandwich for lunch. I remember that like it was yesterday.

Posted at 11:15 AM in Ancestors, Angel/Ghosts, Art, Buildings, Current Affairs, Emotions, Family, Stu Jenks, The South, Virginia | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 18, 2021

Lazarus and Jesus at Duke Cathedral

Last time I visited Duke Cathedral on campus, I was a child.

A few days ago, I returned with a long lens. From a distance, the glass is lovely but close up using my SLR camera, the Gothic-styled stained glass is down right creepy. Most of the faces had white-all-around eyes. Yikes.

I don't know who looks worse, Lazarus or Jesus.

(Actually, I find the Lazarus window very evocative and quite beautiful.)

Posted at 01:50 AM in Angel/Ghosts, Art, Churches, North Carolina, Other Artists, Stained Glass | Permalink | Comments (0)

September 03, 2021

"The Old Man & His Angel"

"The Old Man & His Angel". Image capture by me, when I was recently in Washington.

Detail from Thomas Cole's painting, The Voyage Of Life: Old Age. National Gallery of Art, Washington, DC. I love this painting.

On this date in 2001, my father Stuart Jenks died after a long battle with interstitial muscle cancer.

Politely speaking, Dad and I had a complicated relationship. (More on this can be found from my previous writings and books, specifically the post "Dad Doesn't Leave The House Anymore" on this feed.)

I generally don't miss my father, but occasionally I do.

Like today.

Posted at 01:14 AM in Angel/Ghosts, Art, Family, Other Artists, Washington, DC | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 31, 2021

"Dad Doesn't Leave The House Much Anymore"

"Dad Doesn't Leave The House Much Anymore" (c) Spring 2001, 2010 Stu Jenks

(Pinhole photograph taken six months before Dad died. Exposure time approx. 30 minutes long. Stuart Jenks Sr. died at home on September 3rd, 2001, twenty years ago this week. This story was written in 2010 and edited again today.)

    Dad doesn’t leave the house much anymore.
    “He sometimes goes outside but he rarely stays out,” Mom says. “It’s like he’s given up.”
    It’s been a bad few months. They can’t give Dad the Agent Orange Cancer Cure anymore. Too much of The Big Bad Chemo would kill him outright now. He went to John Hopkins in Baltimore recently and they’ve put him on very experimental cancer therapy which consists of Stuart taking Thalidomide pills. Dad’s now a guinea pig.
    “We’re running out of options,” Dr. Evers, my father’s oncologist, said. My Dad calls him Medger, after the slain civil rights activist. It’s not a compliment, and it's kind of a bad joke. Dad sometimes is less funny than he thinks.
    There’s one more last ditch treatment, they say. Another experimental procedure where they pump a caustic chemical cocktail right into my Dad’s chest. Stuart has to be under anesthesia for this and be closely monitored while they pump in the chemicals. Very experimental. Very risky. A last hope. We’re scheduled to go into the hospital in a few days. I just flew in from Tucson tonight to help as I can.
    Dad’s sitting in front of his mini-TV in the living room. He has on headphones to listen to it, for if he doesn’t, the regular TV speaker blasts out the house. Dad has been losing his hearing for years. He refuses to get hearing aids. He likes hearing less, he said to me, because without hearing aids he can barely hear Mom talk. Stuart fell out of love with Mary years ago, but is too cheap to divorce her. Sadly, Mom is still deeply in love with the man.
    Dad's just sitting there, watching the TV. I walk out onto the screened-in porch, then to the kitchen, then upstairs to my bedroom. I’ve done this circle a number of times tonight. I pass Dad each time, but after our first hand wave of the night, Dad doesn’t look up from the TV. He doesn’t look like he’s paying much attention to the television. Almost like he’s looking right through it. A thousand yard stare, probably not that much different than the one on his face at Iwo Jima in 1945.
    Without him knowing, I place my pinhole camera, with the shutter open, on a table in the living room. I then go outside to sit on the river pier in the dark. No moon tonight. A half hour later, I come back up to the house. Dad’s still sitting where I left him. I grab the pinhole, place my hand over the aperture hole and take it upstairs to my bedroom. I close the shutter once I’m upstairs.
    A few minutes later, I walk back downstairs to get a snack. I wave at Stuart again. This time he waves back. Dad goes back to looking at the TV. He’s not smiling. He’s not really anything. Like a quiet ghost in the house. Strange from a man who had such a big personality when he was well. It’s like he’s already gone now. I don’t fault him for this. Hell, if I’d gone through almost two years of brutal surgeries and horrible chemotherapies that barely shrunk my tumors, I’d want to be gone too. But I still miss him. And then sometimes I don’t. It’s complicated. He's a retired Marine Corps officer. I'm a woo woo artist. Yeah. Often I feel like I don’t know him at all or he, me. We’ve both tried, but we still don’t get each other. Never really have. It makes sad and a little angry. Mostly it just make me really really sad. You kind of missed out on getting to know your only son, Dad, by having unreasonable expectations of me being just like you.
    I walk back up stairs to my room, stow the pinhole camera away in its bag, and go to bed for the night. This is going to be a hard week.

[That week, the doctors didn’t even attempt the super-experimental cancer procedure they had planned. They opened up Dad’s chest and found he was full of cancer. It was too late. That was one horrible day. Mom cried. I cried. Dad, to his credit, tried to put on a good face, cracking a few jokes, but he knew.
I privately asked the oncologist just how long Dad had. He resisted telling me any estimate. I told him I’m not going to hold him to it. The doctor relented and said, “Three to six months.” Almost exactly 6 months later, Dad died on Labor Day night, with his wife Mary lying beside him. "It was so peaceful," Mom said at the time. We buried him at St. Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Church on the next Saturday, two days before the world completely changed on 9/11.]

Dad as a young Marine. Photograph probably taken by his mother, Mama Lillie.

Infrared photograph taken of my father in the Spring of 2001 by me.

Posted at 09:44 AM in Ancestors, Angel/Ghosts, Art, Black & White Photography, Death, Emotions, Family, Film, Grief and Loss, History, Infrared Photography, Love, Memoirs, Nocturnal Photography, Photographs Of My Father, Pinhole Images, Virginia | Permalink | Comments (0)

June 18, 2021

Price: $150, shipping included. 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.

Crane was my friend.

He died in the fall of 2018 at the age of 81.

Here is a lovely article/obituary from Arizona Daily Star and here is a sweet YouTube video done by the Tucson Weekly of the man in his studio.

Crane's studio was just down the hall from mine. When I came over in the early 2000's from the Toole Shed, Crane couldn't have been more welcoming. We would laugh often and cry sometimes. We would watch Survivor in his studio every week with a number of his closest friends. We would shake our heads at the crazy politics of the time. We would help each other out in little ways.

But what I really miss is his hugs. He was the best hugger. He would grab me and pull me in tight and squeeze me hard as I squeezed him back. He would make a little sound when he hugged me. It was great. Sometimes I would joke, "Jeez, Crane, you keep hugging me like that and I'll turn gay for you." He would laugh every time I said that silly joke.

Also, he had the altar at his home that probably had 50 to 100 prayer cards on it, each personally made by him, with fine calligraphy, for anyone who needed a little help from the Great Almighty. He made them for my sister, for my mother, and for my wife at different times. I still have one of those cards that he made for my sister before she died.

In an odd way, Crane might have saved my life. Instead of going to Gabby Giffords' Safeway Grocery Store outdoor meetup on Jan. 8th, 2011, I went to visit Crane in the hospital instead. When I arrived at his room at Northwest Hospital, she had been shoot just moments before. I was ambivalent about going to see Gabby truly, hadn't really made up my mind, but decided it was more important to go see my friend in the hospital that to shake Gabby's hand. In an profound way, I'm lucky Crane got sick.

He was the greatest guy, an amazing artist, a wonderful human being. He proved that you can be a fantastic artist and be a fantastic person, all at the same time.

I miss him. A lot.

A scarf that he wove hangs in my bedroom above my bed. If Crane's spirit is out and about, I know he is looking down on me and on many others, with small prayer cards in one hand, a twinkle in his eye, and that sweet smile on his face.

I miss you, brother.

May God's love always shine on your spirit.

I don't think I even need to ask God for that. He's been doing that for you for years. For me too. For all of us I suppose. I sure hope so.

Give God a hug for me.

#craneday, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries.

Posted at 01:15 AM in Angel/Ghosts, Arizona, Art, Death, Desert Agave, Extended Family Series, Family, Good Folk, Love, Other Artists, Tucson, Walking Sticks, Wall Pieces | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 16, 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.

The story of great aunt Bertie's murder can be found at the link provided here. I strongly suggest you read that. It's a terrible Jenks family tragedy and the story of a shameful family secret. Again, the story as I know it is at a prior post of this website.

I considered writing a fictionalized short novel about Aunt Bertie in 1913-14 Richmond, Virginia, but frankly, it's hard enough just occasionally thinking about what happened to her and the kids. I don't want to live 6 months to a year with this horror as I write the book. I don't think I could emotionally weather it. I'm tough but I'm not that tough.

Honestly, the truth is story enough.

Bertie, wherever you are, I hope your soul rests in peace. I'm so sorry what our family did and didn't do for you, and for Jimmy and Gracie. Shameful