Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

Dia De Los Muertos at the Jenks family plot in Lancaster County, Virginia.

I live here in Greensboro, North Carolina now, but I'm really from Tucson, Arizona.

Part of the border culture, is the annual Dia de los Muestos celebrations. In Sonora, Mexico and Sonoran Arizona, many families on the nights and days around November 2nd, go to their family cemetery plots and clean the graves. They also bring favorite foods and beverages of the deceased, and fresh marigold flowers to decorate the graves of their loved ones. Many stay throughout the nights, drinking and eating, telling funny stories about the deceased, having a good time with friends and family, both living and dead. It's a big deal. Some towns in Sonora, Mexico will have parades honoring the dead. In Tucson, we have the All Souls' Procession, where many thousands of people march through downtown, dressed as the dead, or with placards acknowledging their dead loved ones. A large steel urn filled of written prayers is taken to a site near the Santa Cruz river, where the urn is set ablaze, sending prayers skyward. It's a big deal. (I've been lucky enough to be one of the All Souls photographers over the decades.)

Having moved back to the South, I realize that I had an opportunity to go full-on Day of the Dead with my ancestors. On the way to the Jenks family plot the other day, I visited my grandparents and my great-grandparents in Richmond, along with visiting the grave of my murdered great aunt Bertie. The story of Aunt Bertie's murder and what happened to her two young children can be found at this link. After visiting my folks and my sister, I placed flowers and candles at my great-great grandparents and my great-great-great grandparents graves in Oak Grove Cemetery in Lexington, Virginia. It was kinda-sorta on the way home.

But the main event was at Mary's, Stuart's, and Pamela's graves at St. Mary's Whitechapel Episcopal Church, in Lancaster County, Virginia, near the shores of the Rappahannock River.

Some background regarding St. Mary's Whitechapel and my mother's religious life:

My mother Mary was a big deal in the Diocese of Virginia, being on the Standing Committee and committing her life to service in the Episcopal Church. The rector at St. Mary's in the late 90's and early 2000's was a delight. Loved Mom. Loved trains. However, the rector after him, was an ex-divorce attorney who became a priest late in life. She was frankly horrible, a control freak, pushing mother out of her roles at St. Mary's. Granted, my mother was a force of nature and was a pain in the neck on more than one occasion, but that priest could have fired my mother with a bit more empathy and grace, given she is working with an elderly woman who is doing all this for free. It broke my mother's heart. The current priest at St. Mary's is a very nice woman who I've only met once. Seems very grounded, sweet, and genuine.

Some background regarding on the St. Mary's Whitechapel Graveyard:

The church and the graveyard have been around since 1669. Yeah. 1669. There have been in the past a lot of rules and regulations regarding what you can leave at the graves. No potted plants. No toys. No plastic flowers. No this, no that. They used to enforce this rigidly, but from what I saw the other night, not so much. Potted plants are there. Small figurines are there. A recent burial from a few months ago still had its wilting flowers and the cardboard photo of the deceased. The current priest I believe is doing the right thing, being more flexible. Then again, when she sees the mess I made she might think differently.

I looked all over for marigolds and only found a few late in the process. Trader Joe's sunflowers did just fine.

The food for each person consisted of these:

For Mom, cottage cheese. She loved her cottage cottage.

For Dad, a can of tuna, a can of collard greens, and a single tuna wrap from Trader Joe's. (I ate the second tuna wrap.) Dad loved his tuna fish.

And Pamela, it's bagels.

Many of you have heard me tell the Pamela Jenks Bagel Story. Of her yelling at the Harris Teeter clerk in the frozen food isle in Raleigh.

"Excuse me sir. Can you tell me where the fucking frozen begals are?!!!" Clerk running toward us. "Madam, please don't use that kind of language." Pamela yelling, "Why the fuck not!!!" Clerk's brain going into vapor lock. Him, slowly walking away. Me, just standing there smiling. Not my first Pamela Jenks rodeo.

Pamela yelled and cussed everywhere she went. She wasn't crazy crazy, but she was Southern crazy.

As far as drink goes, that was problematic. All the beverages would have been alcoholic. Me being in recovery, driving with three liquid rattlesnakes in the back of my truck was not a good idea. I went with cans of Arizona Ice Tea, with what they liked to drink written in sharpie on the side of the cans. "Pamela liked scotch." "Dad liked beer." "Mom liked wine." It worked just fine. (Throughout the night, I actually drank Pamela's iced tea. It was very good.)

I placed the food, drink, flowers and candles at each of my loved ones' graves. Put one single flower on my grave, just to include me in all the fun. The Virgin of Guadalupe candles really brought it all together.

I arrived around 5 p.m. and stayed throughout the night, only leaving around 3 a.m. so I could make it to Lexington to place flowers and candles at the Beeton's and Jenks' graves. I place a towel on the "OK God Let's Do It" bench to keep my butt warm, and I played a little woo-woo music on my phone, specifically Steve Roach and Kevin Brahany's "Western Spaces". Hearing that music made me miss Utah and Arizona terribly, but it was still very nice to hear it softly echo throughout the forest.

It's hard to put in words the powers of those few hours. Sometimes if you say too much about a spiritual experience it lessens it resonance in your life. This is one of those times. I felt like crying but I didn't. Just felt sad, mostly because Mary is gone. I miss Mom.

At one point, I walked down to the road to see if I could see the burning candles. I could see the one on top of Dad's headstone. 'Man,' I thought. 'If you are driving down Lively Road tonight and looked up at just the right time, you will see that candle. Won't that be delightfully spooky.'

It was a very good night. Next year, I will return again to honor the dead.

I hope the priest doesn't feel mad at me about all of this. My guess is she will roll with it. But I did leave a candle burning, many flowers and food lying around. My guess is the deer and other wildlife will make short work of the cottage cheese, the tuna wrap and the bagels. The raccoons will have a tough time though, getting into the tuna fish can and the collard greens can, but those little guys are pretty resourceful. You never know.

Rest in peace, Mom, Dad, and Pamela. You were not always the best family, but you are my family.

There is an old metaphysical saying, that our parents did a shitty job, but they did the best they could with the skills they had, and in that paradox, can be find peace and compassion.

I found peace and compassion the other night, in the dark, at my family's graves.

I'm blessed.

#allsoulsday, #diadelosmuertos, #thejenks, #stujenks.

"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.

“Dad, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2021 [Extended Family Series]

“Dad, Saguaro Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2021, 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. (This piece is no longer for sale)

"Dad at Ed-Lil, Virginia"

My father in 1999, during happier times. Photo taken by me using a 35mm Pentax, loaded with Ilford SFX 200 black and white film.

 

So here's the good, the bad, and the ugly about Stuart C. Jenks Sr., at least how I see it at the end of April, 2021. I have a lot to say. And I might change my feelings about some of this at a later date, so take this post with a container full of salt. Here goes.

 

Dad's been dead almost 20 years now, dying in September of 2001. We had a complicated relationship which took me a couple of years of therapy and a couple of decades of recovery to be OK with. Mostly OK with.

Dad didn't want to have children, didn't like having kids. He made that clear often when I was young. He felt obligated to reproduce the species he said, and he did enjoy having sex with my mother, so said Mary when she lost most of her boundaries when she was dying of dementia. Pamela and I knew he didn't like kids. He barely talked to us. Mostly just gave us harsh looks. That hurt both of us a lot knowing that. Me? I moved through most of the pain after a time. A long time. Lot of work. Pamela? She carried that bloody wound throughout her entire life, trying to drink it away and never fully succeeding. She died bitter.

Dad was a Lieutenant Colonel in the Marine Corps, fighting in Okinawa in WWII and stationed in Japan during the Korean War. His only son, me, was a conceptual artist and sculptor at UNC-Chapel Hill in the 1970's, a young man who felt things deeply and voted Democratic since he was 18. Dad voted for Richard Nixon in 1960, 1968, and 1972. Two of the few things we had in common was we both liked NASCAR auto racing and we both found his wife, my mother, irritating.

But Dad did share a love of 12 Step Fellowships, his brother Edgar Jr. having gotten sober in AA. Dad would come with me to my Sunday Morning Cocaine Anonymous meeting when he would visit Tucson, mostly to get out of going to church with Mom, but also because he liked colorful people. CA and AA have colorful people in spades. 

To his credit, Dad had some form of epiphany when I was in college and started telling me that he loved me when we would see each other. I think Dad figured out that he hadn't paid much attention to me in my first 20 years of life and maybe he should start.

He tried to be a good father. Still wasn't very great at it but he tried.

We worked to get along, but we never completely bridged the gap. Dad was intrinsically judgmental and silently angry a lot of the time and even as an adult, he scared me. I think if he was alive today, that would make him sad to hear me say that. But it's true. Mom and Pamela were scared of him too.

However I am my father's son in a number of ways. Both he and I are creative people. He was a good photographer and so am I. Dad knew how to tell a story, as do I, and Dad really liked people. Me too.

However, in other ways, we were very different. I believe Dad felt trapped in his marriage with Mom, him being too cheap to divorce her. I love my wife Alexa and am happily choosing to spending the rest of my life with her.

Dad was not generous with his cash. I am, perhaps to a fault. Got my generosity from my mother. And Dad would on occasion say something extremely racist. "Son, you're spending money like a n----r on a Saturday night." In my 40's, I would ask him to not say the N word around me. The best I got was, "Well, Stu, I know you hate it when I say this, but you are spending money like a n----r on a Saturday night." Yeah.

On the other hand, I can see me through his eyes too. He wanted a tough guy for a son. He got a sensitive artist-type who cried easily and felt the pains of the world. He felt saddled with two children, one of those kids, my sister Pamela, had no boundaries, was loud and impolite, and started saying the word 'fuck' at age 17 and never stopped. He really hated that. He might have loved Mom but I don't think he liked her very much. I don't think he was really that happy, but I could be wrong. He could have just been a jerk, but I'll give him the benefit of the doubt.

Yep, I cut Dad a ton of slack nowadays, even though it may not sound like I do. He didn't want kids but I'm glad he had sex with Mom so that I'm here. He did pay for my college education. That ain't nothing. And he was supportive and proud that I got sober and stayed sober. He wouldn't admit it but he was scared that he would, at some point before I got clean, get a late night phone call saying that I was dead.

There is an old saying in recovery, that we should look for the paradoxes. Two contradictory ideas when put together often show a greater truth and a pathway to wellness.

He's one. "My Dad did the very best he could with the tools he had, and he did a shitty fucking job being a father." And with me holding those two opposing thoughts in my head, I feel a greater compassion for Dad. It's weird but I do.

One last sweet story about Dad.

After he died I felt his presence often. He was kind, generous, happy, forgiving, and encouraging me to spend money on my art business. At one point I said to the spirit off to my left “Who is this guy?“ I had a chat with Dad’s ghost at one point saying “I need you to go away for a little bit because I’m still mad about what are used to be like when he were alive. But don’t worry, I’ll call you back.” 

He went away as I asked and I called him back in a couple of weeks. He was sweet and kind as ever. I got used to it. After a year or so, I didn't feel him around anymore. Maybe he had Angel Ghost work to do.

Dad's ghostly presence reminded me that underneath all of our failings and crap is pure light, pure love, and joy. That’s how all of us are in our soul of souls, don't you think?  If we choose the light, the love, the joy as we live our lives. As the old Todd Rundgren song says, love is the answer. It really is.

I miss you Dad. I wish you had met Alexa. You would have liked her a lot. A lot a lot.

I'll see ya when I see ya. Love ya Dad.

"Stu & Stuart Sleeping, Virginia" Photograph taken by me, using a cardboard pinhole camera, loaded with Ilford HP5 400 ISO film. The camera was given to me by Mom and Dad for Christmas, a couple years before. Exposure time: 90 minutes or thereabouts. Photo taken a few days before my father's death from cancer in 2001. 

#stuartjenks, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries.

A free ePub download of The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010) by Stu Jenks.

 

Download The Transpersonals Papers by Stu Jenks epub (c) 2013 Stu Jenks.

I was just at a Starbuck's buying an Egg Nog Latte, when a homeless woman came in and asked the clerk, "Do you have anything for just a dollar?"

I'm not struggling like her obviously, but as my father used to say, "It's not what you make but what you spend." And having my own business, Fezziwig Press, costs money and my little company isn't making enough money right now.

So I'm doing an Amanda Fucking Palmer thing. If I don't ask, you don't know to give.

Fezziwig Press and I have been struggling financially for the last year or so. Namely, I'm not quite breaking even, still a few hundred dollars in the red each month, even with my part time counseling gig and all. I'm making some sales with image rights, book sales, music sales, etc, but not like I did five to ten years ago. So I'm putting out the artistic begging bowl. And I'm giving shit away.

The Transpersonal Papers (1861-2010) was released in 2011. Cost a boat load to produce but I only sold seven ebook copies. (Thank you to the seven, by the way.) So I'm offering it today, to you all, for free.

If you like The Transpersonal Papers, or the StuBlog, or my work, I ask that you give a little money to my Paypal account. My log-in is my email address, stujenks at gmail dot com, spelled like you normally would type it. Donate to my Paypal, or buy some books, or send money to P.O.Box 161, Tucson, AZ 85702. Whatever you like. No expectations, but if I don't ask, you don't know. And of course, if you don't give, that's perfectly all right too. We're all tight these days, don't I know. Or you just might not like my stuff that much. It's all good, as the kids say. Except for my ever-shrinking savings account.

I hope you enjoy the photographs and the stories in this book. Perhaps someday I'll have enough money to print it as a large coffee table book, like it was originally envisioned. Perhaps not, but you can have it right now for free. Enjoy.

And just download the Adobe Digital Editions free software to see and read The Transpersonal Papers: (1861-2010), if you don't already have it on your computer.

Thanks, y'all, and have a Happy New Year.

Love and light,

Stu

Download The Transpersonal Papers by Stu Jenks epub (c) 2013 Stu Jenks.

All 8 1/2" x 11" A/P archival pigment prints by Stu Jenks for $25, shipping, handling and taxes included...

Image: "Queen Esther Baptist Church, Lancaster, Virginia" (c) 2011 Stu Jenks (Just down River Road from Victoria's house. Love that luscious red carpet. And for you nocturnals out there, it was handheld. Rare for me.)

In this time of making photos on iPhones and Macbook Pros and only looking on screens, I forget I'm a old-school guy. I make a 8 1/2 x 11 work print on archival paper of EVERY image I make. EVERY one. It's the only way, for me, to accurately check for color shift, density, composition, etc. I really like my iPad screen but it's no way to make a good print.

And I have hundreds, if not thousands, of work prints artist proofs at my studio.

If you see an image of mine on The StuBlog or on my old website or on the Fezziwig Press Store or in any of my books, there's a beautiful small print in a box somewhere, perhaps with your name on it. And since I'm organized, I can find it.

Many of you can't afford my larger prints. I understand. I don't have an extra 50 or 100 lying around either. But I do have an extra $20 for stuff I really like.

So if you see an image of mine on any of my sites or in any of my books and you want it, it's yours for $25, shipping, handling and tax included. (I believe in paying taxes, sales and otherwise.)

Just email me at my facebook page or through the StuBlog or at [email protected], and tell me what print you would like or just pull the jpeg and send that to me.

I was just watching the Tarhells lose today in basketball, working on images at my computer when I thought, 'I bet people don't realize I have boxes of work prints here.'

You all do now.

Love and light,

Stu

p.s. Ignore the catagories belows. The computer went wacky. Another reason why I prefer a print in the hand as opposed to an image in The Cloud.

"The Jenks in 1971"

"The Jenks in 1971" (c) ???, 1971 and Stu Jenks, 2012

Found this in my mother's wallet. Was taken at some photo studio in Raleigh, North Carolina in 1971. I was 16 or 17, Pamela was around 21, Dad was 49ish, and Mary was in her early 40's.

I put this up on the StuBlog primarily to show that my sister was once quite the pretty woman. Those horned-rimmed glasses though don't help my parents' looks, and sweet Jesus, did I have terrible teeth back then with the braces and such or what? Yikes. And my long hair just drove my Dad nuts. This was 1971 in the South, you know. And no, I don't know exactly why I decided to part my hair on the right, making a big blob of hairishness. My guess it was I knew if I parted it in the middle, my father and I would come to blows.

But wasn't Pamela a pretty girl?

And i did fiddle with this image a little, but I don't believe in photoshopping away the cracks and lost paper in old photos. They are the lovely scars of time in pictures. And yes, this once was a color photo. Guess it wasn't printed on archival paper (chuckles).

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.

 

"Stuart Looking Up"

"Stuart Looking Up, Mothershead Neck, Virginia" (c) 2000, 2010 Stu Jenks

    Sometimes I miss him and sometimes I don’t.
    But tonight, I miss my Dad.

"Little Stu & Chester's Tail"

"Little Stu & Chester's Tail" (c) 1960 Stuart Jenks Sr. & 2010 Stu Jenks