Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press

A Passel Of Sticks: The vision statement for the Lord of the Rings series.

A Passel Of Sticks: The vision statement for the Lord of the Rings series.

[Images: 15 plus walking sticks/wall pieces in a corner nook in my house]

 

 

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I have been very upset about the nature of our politics of late: the slipping away of our democracies; the general meanness and selfishness of American culture; the mendacity from media figures and conservative politicians alike; but I can’t continue to concentrate of the horribleness of the world.

I rely on physical beauty, spiritual mystery, and human goodness to get me through the day. And I can’t make art that’s entirely focuses on our cultural madness.

Add to that, I have Stage 4 Appendix cancer, that I’m getting chemo for.

Yea, I know.

It’s just not good for me to focus on the negative.

So…

What I can do is make objects that show the beauty in nature and in the world. Hence, I’m making wall pieces and walking sticks named after my favorite characters in Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings series and in Amazon’s new Rings of Power series. Also, other characters from my and other folks’ fictional books and TV shows, and people I admire in real life are honored here as well. Almost all of the pieces will be made of red cedar. All will be sanded, oiled and polished to a lovely shine and feel. All will be beautiful. At least that is my hope.

There’s an old story in photographers’ circles. French photographer Henri Cartier-Bresson, in the 1940’s, criticized American photographers Ansel Adams and Edward Weston by saying: “The world is going to pieces and people like Adams and Weston are photographing rocks.”

I’ve photographed rocks and trees and stars for decades. Now I’m making pretty wooden things, made from red cedar that hang on the wall.

All us creative folks are doing the best we can.

As the Navajos say, I’m trying to walk in beauty. I bet you are too.

Love, light, and luck, Stu.

 

Hoop Dancing with Vollis Simpson...

"Hoop Dancing with Vollis Simpson, North Carolina Museum of Art, Raleigh, North Carolina" (c) 2022 Stu Jenks.

 

Four different versions, four different dances.

Everything you see is on the digital negative. No layering. Some color enhancement and cropping but that's about it. Battery powered Christmas lights make the hoops. Exposure times between 3 and 10 minutes.

And thank you to the very nice security guard who let me shoot without permission from the museum. Sweet, smart man.

For prints and image right sales, just email me at stujenks at gmail dot com.

Keep your lamp trimmed and burning,

Stu.

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.

 

“Auguste Rodin, Saguaro Cactus Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2021 [Extended Family Series]

“Auguste Rodin, Saguaro Cactus Rib, Arizona” © Stu Jenks 2021, 86 inches tall.

Price: $450, 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.

 

The reason I chose a career as an artist is because of Auguste Rodin, I kid you not.

I was attending the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as an art student in the mid to late 1970's. I knew at some point I needed to drive up to the Hirshhorn Museum in D.C. to see what was there. (Pre-internet. You only knew about many things if you saw them in a magazine, in a book, on television, or in real life.) There was a Calder sculpture there at that time I wanted to see and some other minimalist stuff too. I drove all night in my 1964 Karmann Ghia and got there in the morning, stoned on Mexican Dirt Weed, and happy to be there. I roamed the inside of the Hirshhorn for a while and was pretty impressed.

Then I went outside.

The sculpture garden blew my mind, and it wasn't just the marijuana. Henry Moore, David Smith, Barbara Hepworth, Jacques Lipchitz, Giacomo Manzu, Jean Arp...

And Auguste Rodin.

I had seen Rodin's work in books and in slide presentations in art history class, but never in person. I arrogantly thought his work was just OK. I was a minimalist sculptor and conceptual artist at the time, producing what I thought was thought provoking but not particularly evocative or emotional work, like I try to do now. I was a Joseph Bueys-Donald Judd-Frank Stella guy, not particularly interested in 19th Century art.

Until that morning in 1977, when I saw The Burghers Of Calais, Walking Man, and Balzac for the first time.

I hardly remember Walking Man, but Balzac took my breath away, and The Burghers rendered me speechless (and to those of you who don't know me IRL, I'm a chatty guy. Being struck dumb doesn't happen very often with me.)

I don't know if it happened that day, or on the ride home, or when I got back to art school (I was pretty high don't you know), but I remember thinking to myself, "If Rodin can do that, make evocative work that speaks to both our hearts as well as our minds, I can do that too. I can make powerful art too." I wasn't in anyway comparing myself, then or now, to Rodin. I was just inspired to do the work and see if I could bring a little beauty, a bit of honest feeling and a little magic into the world. That I do think I've done to some degree (even though I wish an art professor or a family member had mentioned the importance of a 401-K at some point.) I have created a body of work over the last 25 years that I'm proud of: The photographs, the books, the albums, the sticks.

I may not have made much money in my life but I have put some beauty, some mystery, some true feeling into the world, and I try to be a good person as I do the work. I've not always succeeded as an artist and as a man, but I truly try.

And it's all because I saw The Burghers of Calais on a fall morning in 1977.

 





Photos of Rodin's The Burghers of Calais, & Balzac in Washington, D.C., and The Burghers in Calais, France were taken by me.

#rodin, #stujenks, #extendedfamilyseries

 

“Horse & Coyote, Cedar Driftwood & Rebar, Rapphannock River, Virginia” (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

“Horse & Coyote, Cedar Driftwood & Rebar, Rappahannock River, Virginia” © Stu Jenks 2021, 33 by 48 by 9 inches.

$800, shipping not included. If you really want to buy it, email me at [email protected] and we'll figure it out. It's not really for sale, but you know what they say when it come to buying art. Give me enough money and it's yours.

 

I was visiting my friend Brad and Glenn a few months ago in the Northern Neck, and as is customary, I visited the Rappahanock River near their house, specifically a boat ramp with a nice view of the wide water. Since Mom sold the old home place in 2003 in order to survive, only on occasion will the current owner of Ed-Lil let me come down and visit the river on what is now his property. But this boat ramp? It's always there and even though I think it might be on private property, it's not chained or gated. I simply park my Pathfinder and walk down to the water's edge. It's a lovely spot.

Driftwood is not uncommon to find along the river, but most aren't as beautiful as this piece. I picked it up, looked at it from a number of angles, and saw what I wanted to do: drill a very deep hole in it, and mount it in the way that you see here, using a pipe or a rod of some sort.

Easy peasy.

Famous last words.

After two trips to Home Depot, a visit to Harbor Freight, drilling a hole in this piece of wood that was much harder that I thought it would be, and then busting and blooding the heck out of my finger with a sledgehammer, hammering the rebar into the ground, I got the piece up.

I really love the silvery patina on this wood. And yes, it looks like a horse drinking water to some, or a coyote dancing to others, but mostly to me now, I simply see a lovely piece of white bleached wood, that looks like a lovely piece of white bleached wood.

Birds are finding it. Bunnies run by it. Alexa and I look at it from our kitchen window. Makes us happy.

It was worth the busted finger.

Sometimes you have to bleed for your art. I prefer not to, but shit happens.

P.S.: It's been 10 days and my finger is still healing up. Maybe I should have gotten a stitch. Nah.

This last image, I photoshopped out the supporting rebar and some powerlines in the back. Just for fun.

"Eterally Grateful" (c) Stu Jenks 2021

"Eternally Grateful" (c) 2021 Stu Jenks.

Assemblages are tricky pieces of art. They usually end up looking like "shit on a shingle" created by a first semester art student or an old retired guy who thinks he's making something pretty. Hopefully this piece isn't crap.

I believe my job as an artist is to take the personal and make something that expresses the universal. That's true whether you are a singer/songwriter, a filmmaker, a comic, a writer, or a guy like me who takes photographs of chairs, nightscapes and whatnot, hangs sticks and things off a wall, and who, on occasion, lays his hands on a musical instrument. I feel very strongly about this. Self-indulgent, hey-look-at-me Art is a thing, but it ain't my thing.

That being said, a lot of things in this old Playskool wooden wagon, that hangs off the wall, are very personal to me. I don't know if it'll translate to you, my audience, but I'm trying to make something bigger than me.

So I'll just list the individual elements and leave it at that. I like how my eye moves threw this piece. I'm OK if it doesn't float your boat, but I hope you like it. Some artists say they don't care what other people think, but that's a load of shit. We all care. Just some don't admit it. Don't tell me John Prine didn't care if we liked Angel From Montgomery. Of course he did. Rest in peace, John.

OK. I'll shut up and list what's here.

 

1) A 1950's Playskool wagon. This used to be filled with colorful woodblocks but only a few are left and I don't know where they are. I do remember playing with this when I was 4 or 5. It was fun.

2) A smooth piece of drift wood found on the shores of the Rappahannock River below the old home place on Mothershead Neck Road in Virginia. Mom sold the place in 2003, a year or so after Dad died. Dad didn't believe in life insurance or having many investments so Mom had to sell it to survive. Yeah. Dad fucked up. No big surprise. I still love the place though. The current owner lets me go down sometimes and walk on the pier.

3) A large piece of crude crystal picked up while walking around Coalmine Canyon on the Hopi Rez in Arizona. Coalmine Canyon is a personal spiritual space for me for almost 35 years. It's gotten a little overrun by tourists in trucks the last 20 years but you can still find a isolated spot to pray and meditate. It's a groovy place. If you ever go, be kind to the land.

4) A rusty old railroad spike found on the tracks near The Cienega Creek Trestles in Southern Arizona. Another holy spot for me, that part of the Arizona trail. I didn't pull the spike out of the tracks. It was just laying there. I swear.

5) A piece of tree fungus harvested just north of the Smith-McIntyre farm in Ashe County, North Carolina. That's Alexa's family old summer home place. The Smiths and McIntyres are generous enough to allow me to occasionally go up there to hike the hills around their property. I recently found 2 new holy spots there since I moved back to North Carolina, one, an old stone cairn across the state line in Virginia, and the other, a piece on a high ridge south of the house. Can't tell you how grateful I am to them, and to the land.

6) A broken gold watch given to me by Alexa a few years ago. It be broke. It don't run. Ain't going to pay to get it fixed, but it came from my wife and it sure is purdy. Just like her. It's set at 12:03, for no particular reason. It just look cool.

7) A XXXII sobriety chip from AA, received at my old home group Smoke Free Nooners in Tucson. God willing and the creek don't rise I'll have 36 years on February 7th of this year.

8) A blue heavy Fender guitar pick. I don't play guitar. I play the mandolin. Poorly.

9) An aluminum Mexican heart given to me by my good friend Mark this last Christmas. We've known each other since 1985. It's a big deal.

10) A tiny piece of wood scrap from the top of a walking stick/wall piece that I'm currently working on. Been doing this series the last few years called The Extended Family, featuring pieces named after family, friends and people I admit and love. This piece is called Bono, Beech Wood, Uwharrie Mountains., North Carolina. Bono, for those you living under a rock, is the lead singer of U2.

11) A 23 year sobriety chip from Cocaine Anonymous. This fellowship and its members have meant the world to me over the last 35 plus years. We're here and we're free, as they say.

12) The absence of anything in the upper left-hand portion of the wagon. The lack of something is a thing to me. I love spaces.

and 13) A special three-spiral chip from CA entitled Eternally Grateful. It's created for those members who have died but we still wise to honor. I placed it here for my friend Chris R. from Atlanta, who died of COVID in 2020. He was a wonderful man who helped many people.

I hope this small thing speaks to a larger truth. It now hangs back in the Jenks' garage where I see it often. Needless to say, it's not for sale. Unless you are talking a shit load of money.

Love you guys.

Stu.

Images From The Fall of 2020.

"Angel in Surry County, North Carolina" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

Well, I finally made it into the loving arms of my wife in Greensboro, North Carolina. Looking for part time work. Loving the people and the food. Even the mosquitoes are biting me too bad. Wish I had more money than I have right now, but I am truly rich in love. 

Got behind on putting images up here but I have some time tonight. Alexa sleeps downstairs. I'm typing from my new studio in the garret of our house. I mowed the yard today and I actually enjoy that. I'm hiking in the deep woods, only downside is you don't hike alone on the weekends. Working on some new walking sticks/wall pieces. Newest one is a piece in honor of Ruth Bader Ginsberg. I've been visiting with some old college friends and making new ones here too. 

Botton line: Except for the thin checking book, I couldn't be happy. 

Hope you dig the new images.

Stu

"Bighorns at Cathy's Fault, Arizona" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

 

"Spiral on the Yadkin River, North Carolina" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

 

"Seven Saguaros, Cathy's Fault, Arizona [Colorado River School]" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

 

Religious images, in Nogales, Sonora; Tucson, Arizona, and on the T.O. Reservation, Arizona & Mexico.

 

Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair and a curtain in a window, in Henry, Virginia.

 

Black lives do matter now, on Monument Avenue in Richmond, Virginia.

 

"St. Jude's Cemetery, T.O. Reservation, Arizona" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks. 

 

Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair in Lancaster County, in the Rappahannock River in Virginia; on a wall in Bladen County, NC; on the tracks at the Bean Shoals, along the Yadkin River, NC; more tracks at Brown's Summit, NC; by the Tin Man wall in Greensboro; in front of a movie theatre in Yanceyville, NC; surfing at Wrightsville Beach, NC, near the Blue Ridge Parkway, NC; and at Table Rock at Linville Gorge, in North Carolina.

 

 

"Pet Milk (with PBRC), Goldsboro, North Carolina" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

 

"A Cabin, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks. 

 

"The Rapids Below, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks. 

 

"Legs For Days #2 (A Portrait of Alexa Jenks), sculpture made with batik fabric, eye bolts & a crab pot buoy, our back yard in Greensboro, North Carolina, [Colorado River School photograph]" (c) 2020 Stu Jenks.

 

Prism Red Maple, our front yard, Lindley Park, Greensboro, North Carolina. (c) Stu Jenks 2020.

 

Portrait of me by Tom Whittington, with Looking Glass Mountain in the distance, North Carolina. 

Fine Art Walking Sticks By Stu.

For those of you who know me, you know that I like to walk. A lot. A lot a lot. Hiking hither and yon, happily up high desert hills and down rocky western valleys. Then in October of 2018, my wife and I moved to North Carolina. (I've since returned to Tucson. The short story? I couldn't find work. Financially strapped I became. My wife is still there, surrounded by family. She and I hope to reunite soon. We miss each other terribly.) Though I traded cactus and high desert for beech trees by still waters, and rolling hills they call mountains there, I continued walking. And walking.

As a kid and a young man in North Carolina, I marveled, as I strode through Southern forests, at those small spiral trees, that became beautifully deformed, because vines choked them into those shapes. Soon after I arriving back in the South last year, I saw such a spiral tree while hiking beside a creek. The tree was dying now. I cut down its ailing trunk. I took it home and I began to make a walking stick out of it (Or wizard's staff perhaps, since it came in at over 61 inches tall.) It took grinding and whittling and sanding and oiling. It took a long time. It turned out well. But one stick just wasn't enough. I want to make more spiral walking sticks. I went hunting for them, work gloves in my back pocket, a small saw in my hand. I hunted spiral trees like a sportsman stalks a deer. I learned about different types of wood: Hornbeam, a low tree but very hard, where I spied many a spiral; Red and Black Oaks, tough carving but beautifully red when finished with Tung oil; Beech wood, almost too soft at times to carve but lovely none the least, either with or without a spiral. I learned about grinders and sandpaper and steel wool and the very best of oils.

I got a BFA in Studio Art at Carolina in 1979, in sculpture, ceramics and weird conceptual art. I was a half-ass sculptor back then but not a terrible photographer or art filmmaker, but I had no steady vision, little discipline, no patience. But now, I seem to have the patience for hours of carving and sanding. OK. I'm not always patient, but I am practicing the artistic adage of "You must be in love with the process of making art, otherwise you will eventually stop doing it." Mike Cindric, my art professor at UNC, taught me that. I love the carving with my sharp pocket knife, the grinding with a soft wheel before sanding, the 220 grade sandpaper and the final 400 grade, then the oiling, one coat, two coats, up to four coats, depending on if I want a glossy or matte finish, and then the final polishing with super fine steel wool.

I've become a sculptor again. A pretty good one this time, if I do say so myself.

Then I moved back to Arizona in April. I brought my stock of hardwood sticks with me. There is no Hornbeam, no Red Oak, no Beech trees here, but there are lovely Cottonwood and Sycamore trees in the washes with their bright white wood, Aspen trees way up high in those mountains, and Saguaro ribs down below. And a friend or two are now gifting me their old sticks to carve. Isn't that nice? Not many spirals trees here but sweet, strong sticks nonetheless.

So on my website, there will be fine art walking sticks for sale. Most will be expensive but some of the simpler designs will be cheaper, around $125 or so. I don't need to tell you they are one of a kind, unique in the truest sense of the word, made with love and that-patience-thing-I-mentioned, finished as finely as I can possibly make them.

Not to be too highfalutin, but these are more sculptures than walking sticks. Signed on the bottom. Cataloged and photographed. Sure, you can use most of them to balance your stride on the trail, but I envision these pieces leaning against living room walls as much as helping you climb the next big hill.

Lastly, if you are in Arizona, it's much easier to buy them by coming by my studio (contact me at [email protected] for the location.) or me bringing them to your place. They are expensive to ship, but I will ship them. And you can pay me via Paypal, using [email protected] or at my store at www.stujenks.org

So that's my story. Look for more sticks up here over time. I'll mark ones that have sold and I'll put up my new sticks as soon as they are finished.

Keep your lamps trimmed and burning, y'all. And as always, thank you for your financial and emotional support over the years.

Love, light and luck,

Stu

 

 

Beech Tree "Y" Stick, 54.25 inches, North Carolina. Price: $150.

 

 

Red Oak Spiral Stick, 61 inches, North Carolina. Price: $175. Sold.

 

 

Soft Beech Spiral Stick, 67.5 inches, North Carolina. Price: $200. Sold.

 

 

Saguaro Rib Stick, 56.75 inches, Arizona. Price: $100.

 

 

Hornbeam Skin Spiral Stick, 58.5 inches, North Carolina. Price $250. Sold.

 

 

The First Spiral Hornbeam, 61.5 inches, North Carolina. Price: $700.00

 

Crooked Hornbeam, 47 inches, North Carolina. Price: $175. Sold.

 

 

Aspen Scar, 54.5 inches, Colorado. Price: $125.

 

 

Tall Aspen, 71 inches, Colorado. Price: $125

 

 

Cottonwood Crook, 59 inches, Arizona: Price: $150.

 

 

Saguaro Little "Y", 66.5 inches, Arizona. Price: $125.

 

 

Aspen "S", 54 inches, Colorado. Price: $125. Sold.

 

 

Saguaro Split, 66.5 inches, Arizona. Price: $150. Sold.

 

 

Saguaro Tall Curve, 68 inches, Arizona. Price: $150.

 

 

Spotted Hornbeam, 56 inches, North Carolina. Price: $200. Sold.

Cherry Picking Leviticus, as a pdf and as an ebook for only $2.00

My new book Cherry Picking Leviticus is available for only $2.00, at the Fezziwig Press store, both as an pdf and as an epub file. You can also buy other Stu stuff there as well.

And below are some recent images from me. Hope you like. Have a wonderful day, and keep the faith baby, however you do that.

Love and light, Stu.

"Moravian Flowers, Fulp, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [On the front door of a loving church in rural North Carolina.]

 

"Nannie's Mirror: Town Creek Indian Mound, Mt. Gilead, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [This structure is a re-creation of the religious building that stood here centuries ago, so I wasn't damaging anything by placing my grandmother's mirror within its ropes. Quite a spiritual place to visit, with the creek over there, the temple up there on that mound and the woods all around. Check it out if you are in the area.]

 

"Sunset Fog in Pine Forest, Norman, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [One of my favorite images so far from 2019.]

 

"Driving Drizzle, Pilot Mountain, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks.

 

"Deer Skull along the Ararat River, Virginia" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [I found this white-tailed deer skull on the other side of the river from where I took these photos, not far from the grave of J.E.B. Stuart's great-great-grandfather who was murdered (not killed in battle but murdered in his home by a Torie), during the Revolutionary War.

This pristine skull sat atop a tall bluff, near a rusty old Model A Ford car door, both I'm guessing washed down stream during hurricane flooding. It was just sitting, on some grass, like it had been placed there. A lovely and welcome surprise.

 

"House on Rt. 831, Virginia" (c) Stu Jenks 2019

 

"The grave of the poet Randall Jarrell, a Quaker Cemetery near Guilford College, Greensboro, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [Randall Jarrell's poetry inspired me to be a writer when I was in high school. And yes, I place those flowers there. RIP Randall.]

 

"Confederate Water Skiers, Mt. Airy, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks [A clandestine image capture of a postcard in a consignment store. Was I going to pay $10 for this creepy postcard? No freaking way.]

 

"Red Doors, Madison, North Carolina" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks.

 

"Nannie's Mirror at Turn Four, looking down the front straightaway, Martinsville Motor Speedway, Martinsville, Virginia" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks. [Holy ground to you gear heads out there. And when they aren't racing, you can drive right up to the fence. I kid you not.)

 

"Push For Story, Appomattox Court House National Historic Park, Virginia" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks (Just might end up being the cover of my next book.)

 

"A Fatal Figure on the wall, after 40 years, Art Lab Building, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks [After all these years, it's still there. Then again, I did spray paint this onto a porous brick wall in 1978, but still.]

 

Hoop Dance for Aunt Orlean Puckett.

"Hoop Dance for Aunt Orlean Puckett, Blue Ridge Parkway, Virginia" (c) 2019 Stu Jenks.

 

From the National Park Service website.

Born in North Carolina, Orlean Hawks Puckett received little formal education before she married John Puckett at about age sixteen. They settled close to his family near Groundhog Mountain in Patrick County. Her first child was born in 1862 but died a few months later of diphtheria. Of her twenty-three subsequent pregnancies, none of the children born living survived more than a few days, possibly as a result of Rh hemolytic disease.

Orlean Puckett and her husband moved in 1875 to a nearby farm in Carroll County, where he built a two-story log house. She first served as a midwife in 1889, when no doctor or other midwife could be found for a neighbor. Puckett soon began traveling around the region, sometimes up to twenty miles distant, to deliver babies. She never charged for her services and became known throughout the area for her compassion and skill, having never lost a mother or baby during the more than 1,000 deliveries she attended.

Orlean moved from her home in 1939 because of the construction of the Blue Ridge Parkway. However, she died three short weeks afterward. A small cabin on her property was preserved by the National Park Service, and is known to be Puckett Cabin.

Continuing her legacy of care, the Orlean Hawks Puckett Institute, in Asheville, North Carolina, works to promote and strengthen child, parent, and family development.

Her story to many is a perfect picture of the strength of Appalachian women in the 1800's and the early 1900's.

P.S. from Stu: Zoom in on the window if you can. I got lucky and captured reflections of the spinning Xmas lights in the glass of Orlean's cabin. Also, this image was a prayer for me: to let go of the past, be fully here in the now, and to have hope for the future.