Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

A deep dive into my hard drives, and a few new images as well...

"Council Rocks Flame Tower, Dragoon Mountains, Arizona" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

So recently I've been doing deep dives into my hard drives, to perhaps find some images I had overlooked, or reprocess some photos from the past that I can make better. It's been fun.

Here, is a Zippo lighter image, shot at dusk at Council Rocks in Arizona a few years back. (I may need to do more flame tower images here in North Carolina. Hmm.) I popped the color a bit and sharpened the photo a little. I really like this image and this place. It is the place where the Apache chief Cochise lived, and where he made peace with the Americans in the 1870's. I miss Arizona so.

Other old and a few new images are below. If you want a print of anything, reach out.

And may you all have a Merry Christmas and a blessed New Year.

Love y'all.

Stu.

"Shiprock at Dusk, New Mexico" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Washington Monument 1961, D.C." (c) Image capture Stu Jenks 2021, photographer unknown, from a postcard.

"Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Jesse Brown's Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway, North Carolina" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.


"Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Brown's Summit, North Carolina" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair (with pelican), North Topsail Island, North Carolina" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"A Dartmoor Stream, UK" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Scorhill Stone Circle, Dartmoor, UK" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"The British Oaks in Wistman's Wood, Dartmoor, UK" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Crowned Buddha, Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina" (c) Stu Jenks.

"Parvati, Ackland Art Museum, Chapel Hill, North Carolina" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Little Copper Dome, Broad Street, Richmond, Virginia" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Mossy Creek Church, The Valley of Virginia" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks. (The place where my fourth great-grandmother Polly is buried, in an unmarked grave)

"Rodin's Burghers, In front of City Hall, in Calais, France" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Acis and Galatea, Luxembourg Gardens, Paris, France" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Portrait of a woman, outside of Chartres Cathedral, France" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"The Blue Virgin, Chartres Cathedral, France" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"St. Mark's Episcopal Church, Cheyenne, Wyoming" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"The Blue Mary, Parroquia de la Purisima Concepcion, Nogales, Sonora, Mexico" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

"Flame Spiral atop Tumamoc Hill, Tucson, Arizona" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

 

The Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair Installation at Tohono Chul Park

As part of the Dia De Los Muertos show at Tohono Chul Park in Tucson, The Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair Installation is up and ready to go. The opening is Thursday, August 24 at 5:30 p.m.. The show runs until November 8th. Thanks so much to James and Karen for allowing me to be part of this show.

And this post goes out to all those folk who live outside of Southern Arizona, so you all can see and enjoy the piece too. To read the artist's statement for the piece, just click on this link.

Again, thank you everyone for your financial and emotional support this summer. It's been a tough one for me and for many. You all have helped more than you know.

The Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair Installation (2012-2017)

The Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair Installation (2102-2017) by Stu Jenks.

This installation will be part of the upcoming Dia de los Muertos show at Tohono Chul Park, in Tucson, Arizona from August 24th, until early November. I am thrilled to bring this installation to the world for the very first time at Tohono Chul. Many thanks to James Schaub and Karen Hayes for making it all possible.

 

        My sister Pamela Jenks has been dead six years now. Died of breast cancer at age 62. I miss her. Not all the time, but from time to time. I certainly don’t miss the selfish, mean, loud drunk she was most of her adult life, but I surely miss the considerate, kind, loving woman she became the last six months before she died. Thanks, Pamela, for being the sister I always wanted to have, those last few weeks.
        From soon after Pamela’s death in 2011 to the present, I’ve been taking my sister’s toddler rocking chair hither and yon. Due to her alcoholism and her general fear of the big bad world, Pamela Jenks was a virtual shut-in the last couple of decades of her life, living in my family’s falling-down old home place in Raleigh, North Carolina. I first took Pamela’s Baby Rocking Chair out and about, when I drove it and me to my sister’s grave in rural Virginia in 2012. Since then, with only a few breaks, I’ve photographed the PBRC all over the place, from the streets of New York City, to the hills of San Francisco, from the wilds of Sonora, Mexico to the snows of Utah, from the Atlantic Ocean in South Carolina to Swami’s Beach in Encinitas, California. I’ve taken Pamela’s chair to where she was too afraid to go.
        Then last winter, something unexpected happened. My sister’s chair wasn’t so much about her anymore. It became my chair. It represented me as well as my sister, about my journey through life, not so much about my memories of her and of my deceased mother and father. The chair is me, and judging from all the patrons over the years who have bought prints of the PBRC, the chair has become you as well.
        This summer has been financially and emotionally tough for me. Hell, it’s tough all over, but creating this installation has put a number of things in their proper perspective.
        1) Pamela’s dead. I am not.
        2) I’m still making stuff, recording music, typing words. Pamela’s ain’t doing no cross stitch no mo.
        And 3) I have friends and family that I love very much and they care for me too. They can talk to me and hold me and hug me and I can do the same back. Pamela, however, is in the grave, unable to humanly love and touch me, and she can’t be touched or hugged back or listened to.
        But maybe that’s her over there, skipping through the trees, a teenager having her whole life ahead of her, not seeing the future alcoholism, the desperate loneliness, the checkered job history, and the resentful bitterness that made a cold bed for her to lie in every night.
        Maybe her light-filled spirit is right here, right now, right over there, free and happy.
        What did you just say Pamela?
        “I’m fucking proud of you, bro,” says the angel ghost off my left shoulder. “I fucking love ya.”
        “Thanks, Pamela,” I whisper to myself. “I love you too.”

 

 

        To read the Pamela’s Baby Rocking Chair book, you can buy the e-book on Amazon and on other sites, or listen to or buy the audio book on iTunes, or Spotify, or if you want to buy the real live paperback book book, contact me at www.stujenks.org. The second Pamela’s Baby Rocking Chair book, A Chair In The Wilderness, will be released sometime in 2018.
        Have a blessed day, y’all.

 

"Las Vegas Kaleidoscope"

"Las Vegas Kaleidoscope, Nevada" (c) 2013 Stu Jenks

Now available, on the Apple IPad: The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010) and Bozo In Love

Been a long time coming for The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010).

Three editors, two proofreaders, two designers, four printers, and hours, days, weeks, months, years, lifetimes, (I know I'm overstating), of writing, traveling, shooting, editing, remembering, hiking, and more writing, shooting, and editing, but I'm not complaining. No, no, no.

And apologies for not having the dough right now, to print The Transpersonal Papers as a coffee-table book as I had originally planned. ($10,000, it would have cost. Maybe someday.) But you now can buy it, for $14.95, as an Ebook on the Apple IPad, and I expect it to be available within a couple days on the Nook and the Kindle as well.

I just looked at it on my new IPad. The photos, text and design look grand.

And as an extra surprise, Bozo In Love is now up on IBooks too, ($9.95), as well as the rest of my catalog: Flame Spirals, Hoop Dancing, and Dementia Blues, on IBooks, Nook and Kindle.

Just in time for Christmas.

And don't worry. All but The Transpersonal Papers can still be bought as a book book through Fezziwig Press. I have plenty. Just go to www.fezziwigpressonline.com, for the hardbounds and paperbacks, but go to ITunes, today, (and Kindle and Nook, soon) for the ebooks.

Heavy sigh from my third story apartment balcony. I look out onto the Tucson city lights in the valley below. Cold, dry air embraces me. I inhale deeply. Exhale.

A very good night in the desert.

Think I'll make a cup of coffee with egg nog and play some Angry Birds on my new IPad.

Time to celebrate.

 

"Venus De Medici"

"Venus De Medici, Caesar's Palace, Las Vegas, Nevada" (c) 2010 Stu Jenks

"You Never Said I'm Leaving"

"You Never Said I'm Leaving: A Cowboy's Grave: Nevada" (c) Stu Jenks 2010

"Antlers"

"Antlers, Nevada" (c) 2010 Stu Jenks

[Happy Friday the 13th, y'all. For some reason, it's always been my lucky day.]

"Old Lady Marmot"

"Old Lady Marmot, Great Basin National Park, Nevada" (c) 2010 Stu Jenks

"The Nicest Hotel Room"

"The Nicest Hotel Room, Hard Rock Hotel, Las Vegas, Nevada" (c) 2008, 2009 Stu Jenks

[I'm comfy sleeping in the back of my truck or in a Red Roof Inn, but I treated myself last Fall, after a day of walking among the Ancient Bristlecones. I was so blown away by how great this hotel room was, that I took a couple pics of it. The bathroom was astoundingly sleek. The tub was as deep as a pool. The bed was so soft it was like sleeping on clouds. And check out that huge flat screen TV on the left. And as I fell asleep that night, a warm desert breeze blew through the open french doors, that overlooked the pool ten stories below. And the final cherry on the sundae was a large photo of Jimi at Monterey Pop burning his guitar. Let me stand next to your fire.]