Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press: The Border

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 05, 2021

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.

Posted at 11:37 AM in Atmospheric Music, Current Affairs, Death, Dying, Emotions, Family, Flowers, Good Folk, Love, Mary Jenks, Photographs Of My Father, Photographs Of My Mother, Photographs Of My Sister, Religion, The Border, The South, The West, Tucson, Virginia, Women | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 25, 2020

The Colorado River School by Stu Jenks.

The Colorado River School by Stu Jenks (c) July, 2020.

Pictorialist photography was a turn-of-the-20th-century movement where some photographers wanted to be in more museums, to be taken more seriously, and to be seen as artists in and of themselves, up there with painters, sculptors, printmakers, etc., using very soft focus and adding colors to the black and whites to express emotion and mood. It was a thing for a while.

It was a thing for a while with me too, using an old Brownie camera with a softening plastic lens in the early 2000's, printing black and white negs on color paper. Also in the 2010's, I used a painterly add-on in my Photoshop to make images look old and painterly.

And a week ago while hiking in the Sierra Anchas Mountains, it became a thing again, with my SLR and my killer 70-200mm lens. I saw, in my mind's eye, images with soft focus and exaggerated colors, not razor sharp but dreamy like those old Brownies of mine. Lucking I remembered a thing I can do in the RAW image section of Photoshop to make this happen. And a couple of other tricks I have too.

Three days ago, I was up at the Grand Canyon shooting stock. Again, in my mind's eye, looking into that great big hole in the ground I imagined a softer image, with lots of color that wasn't there, lots of feeling that wasn't in my initial gaze, a mystery I would like to see outside of my head and away from the Canyon.

And I thought of the Hudson River School.

That was a nineteenth-century movement in American painting that featured the landscape as a pastoral setting, a place where man and nature lived in harmony. It was a fantasy, but a nice dream, using extreme colors and fine composition to create a mood of peace. Thomas Cole is seen as its founder but other painters like Frederic Church, Albert Bierstadt, Asher Durand, and Susie Barstow were also prominent. Cole's work at the National Gallery in Washington has moved me often in my journeys there, particularly his Voyage of Life. These artists were not plein air artists, painting outdoors, using nature as a firm template. They mixed and matched ideas, creating landscapes out of whole cloth, taking a little of this mountain and a little of that river, then maybe throwing in a house or a human. They were not painting what was exactly in front of them. They were trying to make a point but also trying to make magic. When I've seen these enormous canvases in real life, they've awed me, made me speechless, which for those of you know know me, is not any easy thing to do.

So staring at the Grand Canyon, I saw a loose template for me to create something emotional, soft, colorful and new, or at least new to me.

[Art Critique: I looked up Hudson River School of Photography on the internet and found a group of dudes. Bros really. They were taking their landscape shots, sharpening the shit of them with HDR and who knows fucking what and they all seemed very proud of themselves. That's a bit unfair, and for those of you photogs who see yourself in this artistic vane and are humble about it I apologize. But these guys really like what they are doing, which is nothing new or meaning at all in my eyes. Sharp as a razor images with slighted popped color and no soul. BFD. You see this a lot in photography these days. Bottom line: This ain't Hudson River School. This is Bro River School. End of critique.]

However...

I like the idea of the true old intention of the Hudson River School (and if you ain't got intention in your art making, you ain't making art. Sorry bro.) But I can't use Hudson River School in the names of my photographs because of these guys. So I thought Santa Cruz River School, named after the mostly-dry river in Tucson. Nah. Don't feel right.

Then I remembered what I thought at the Canyon. I was standing, shooting and praying at Lipan Point, one of my most powerful spiritual and artistic spots on the planet, which I've visited dozens of times over the decades. I looked down at the Colorado River as it made the big turn, coming down from the north then flowing west and I thought, "Colorado River School. I like that. But it's a bit pretentious."

Two days later, I got over that. It's a nice name.

Colorado River School it is.

So off we go. Hope you dig the magic I'm trying to make here. Often times I fail, but from time to time, it works.

One thing I learned in Art School at Carolina from Mike Cindric is we need to keep making stuff, throwing pots, making sculpture, painting paintings, shooting photographs, weaving tapestries, writing books, singing songs, etc.. Keep at it. Don't stop. If you're going to be a successful artist, you make stuff everyday. It's the job. A good job emotionally and spiritually, perhaps financially not so much at times, but it's good work. Really good work. And from the work comes results. Just like from any other kind of committed effort. Eventually you make The Good Shit.

When in art critiques at Carolina, when I made something that was successful, Cindric and the other students would say, "It works."

True in 1977. True in 2020.

I pray these pieces work too. Sometimes they will. Sometimes they won't. But I'll keep making the stuff. Everyday.

And hoping to make for The Good Shit.

Posted at 01:13 PM in Alexa McColl Smith Jenks, Arizona, Art, Brownie 127s, Canyons, Colorado River School, Current Affairs, Emotions, Family, Metaphysics, Mexico, Stu Jenks, The Border, The Sky, The West, Tucson, Valleys | Permalink | Comments (0)

July 16, 2020

Images from the final months of the Trump Administration.

Yes, it's 4 months before the November election but it's a lock that Trump will no be reelected. I can hear some say "Don't jinx it. We said that about Hillary." Well, many independents disliked Hillary and didn't come out to vote. Now a ton of Democratic-leaning Independents hate Trump even worse than Clinton, and they will show up to end this horrible shit show that is the Trump Administration. And tens of 1000's of young people will be voting too, just like they did in 2018.

Most people look at my Facebook page for photos and info about me, maybe a few look at my Twitter feed, but hardly anyone I know comes here to my blog. That's OK, but I'm going to leave a large Easter egg here and I'm going to see if anyone notices.

In mid-August, I'm moving back to Greensboro, North Carolina, to hopefully find work there and to live the rest of my life with my lovely wife Alexa. All I need to do is find part-time work. I'll be OK.

And I miss Alexa like the Dickens.

My recovery from my radical prostatectomy surgery has been slow but moving forward. Still pain in my groin and sexual functioning is every so slowly returning but it is coming back a bit. The cancer is all gone and I can pretty much hold my piss and shit. That last sentence is a big fucking deal. Many men do not have that result after surgery. I do. I'm grateful.

So before I leave Arizona, here are some photos from the last few months: some good, some mundane, but all heartfelt.

And I'll see who text me, emails me or Facebook messages me and says, "Dude, you're moving? Man, we will miss you, but do what you gotta do."

I am. I need to go home and be with my wife.

Hugs, kisses and deep gratitude, y'all.

Stu

It's mid July and the Bighorn Fire is finally out. We think. It burned all over the Catalina Mountains for what? Six weeks? While the Covid-19 spread so did the fire. It was a bit much after a while. Everything right now is a bit much for many of us.

I may never see this place again. Been coming here for 33 years. And even though I'm sad, this canyon has given me so many things, physical, emotional, and spiritual. Big kiss, Coalmine.

Going to have the sell the Buick for scrap before I leave Arizona. It has a value lifter problem and the car is only worth $1000 at best, with 415,000 miles on it, and the repair would cost over $2000. Luckily, I have the old Pathfinder with a new clutch and a new-ish front end. Strong engine too. 'Spirals' on its license plate. I will be styling when I get to NC. Even the good-old-boys will respect an old truck like mine but the Arizona tags may make them a little suspicious.

This particular juniper tree I have been visiting for over 30 years. Have harvested its boughs for incense more than once. It's an old but very fragrant tree. I'll miss you buckaroo, but I'm taking some of you with me.

Obelisk!!! (Inside family joke.)

"Cast of Richard III, Meredith College, Raleigh, North Carolina, Summer of 1973" (c) Photographer unknown.

The first play I acted in, a couple months before I went off to UNC-Chapel Hill. In the Raleigh News and Observer, in their review of the play, I was mentioned positively in my role as Lord Dorset. That one sentence in the paper propelled me to a career in the Arts. I'm not kidding. All the photographs, music, books, projects, installations, etc., point back to that one role in Raleigh in 1973 and that one tiny bit of encouragement.

Yep. Fucked me up pretty bad. (That's a joke. Sorta.)

Baby, I'm coming home to you.

Posted at 10:02 PM in Alexa McColl Smith Jenks, Angel/Ghosts, Arizona, Art, Cactus, Cancer, Chagford, Death, Deserts, Ethics, Faith, Good Folk, Grand Canyon, Home, Love, National Parks, Night Photography, Nocturnal Photography, North Carolina, Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Photography, Pictorialist Photography, Relationships, Rocks, Sky, Stars, The Border, The Four Directions, The Road, The Sky, The West, Trees, Tucson | Permalink | Comments (0)

April 12, 2020

Images from the time of the Coronavirus

Been a little behind on getting recent images up on my website, with my pending prostate surgery pre-op stuff, my recent employment and money challenges due to the Coronavirus, and I'm missing the living crap out of my wife too, but that's no excuse really. I just haven't made the time to upload until now.

So on this Easter Sunday, here are some images from the past few weeks. And as always, prints and images rights are for sale.

Much love to you all. Stay home, stay safe and be well.

Love, Stu.

"Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Tehachapi Loop. California (New Version)" (c) Stu Jenks 2020.

This wall piece and other walking-stick-inspired pieces are part of an ongoing series called 'The Extended Family'. Along with these sculptures, I have more traditional walking sticks for sale for $80, made from aspen, saguaro, agave and other natural materials. Just send me a email and I can shoot you some jpegs of what is currently in stock. And I will ship.

Posted at 12:45 PM in Angel/Ghosts, Arizona, Art, Buildings, California, Churches, Circles, Current Affairs, Death, Deserts, Emotions, Faith, Family, Flowers, Forgiveness, Good Folk, Grand Canyon, Greensboro, NC, Hope, Love, Marriage, Moon, Mountains, North Carolina, Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, People, Photography, Prayer, Public Art, Relationships, Religion, Spirals, Spirituality, Stu Jenks, The Border, The Moon, The Road, The South, The Sun, The West, Tucson, Walking Sticks | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 25, 2019

As the Holidays approach...

[Some new images for y'all as we approach the Holidays. By the way, if you want any fine art prints from me, it's best to order them before Dec. 16th. 8.5 x 11s are $40 plus shipping (around $50) and 13 x 19s are $80 plus shipping (around $100). All images on this website are for sale, they're signed, and printed to order. Just give me the title and I'll print them up for you.

Hope your weird uncle Charlie behaved himself at Thanksgiving, and I pray your Christmases and Holidays are filled with wonderful times with family and friends, and many joyous mysteries and blessed certainties.

P.S. I'm having an open house at my studio, where I'll be showing my wall sculpture/walking stick series "The Extended Family." Sunday, December 15th, 2019. Email, message, text or call me for directions.

Ho, ho, ho...

Stu

Posted at 07:24 PM in All Souls' Procession, Arizona, Art, Cactus, Christmas and Winter Solstice, Current Affairs, Earth Spirals, Fezziwig Press, Flora & Fauna, Home, Hope, Love, Marriage, Mountains, My Grandmother Nannie's Mirror, Nannie's Mirror, Photography, Prayer, Sky, Spirals, Stones, The Arizona Trail, The Border, The West, Travel | Permalink | Comments (0)

October 15, 2019

The PBRC & The Concertina Wire

“Can I touch the fence?” I ask.

“Sure,” says the Border Patrol Agent #2, “but you just might catch a disease or something, like Typhoid.”

He laughs. His partner doesn’t.

Me? Nah. Not that fucking funny. Way too racist for my tastes.

And so continues my exchange with Border Patrol Agents #1 and #2.

I decided to drive down to the border to see the new Trump Wall. I got a little confused where the new wall was. Seems they are actually building it 50 miles to the west of here, near Lukeville. I’m a few miles east of Sasabe. Using my Arizona Gazetteer map, I skirted the tiny town of Sasabe and got on the dirty roads of the Buenos Aires National Wildlife Refuge that hugs the border all the way from Sasabe to Nogales. My Pathfinder is old but with its big tires and low gears, it can go just about anywhere.

So here I am, at the border fence. Not the Trump Wall but the rusty tall steel fence build back in the early 2000’s. Except now, it has Trumpian Concertina wire along the top. It was almost an elegant structure years ago. Now it looks like shit, like a prison fence.

I park the truck and take out Pamela’s Baby Rocking Chair, put it near the fence and begin to compose a shot. Way off to the east, close to a mile away along the dirt road that parallels the fence, I spy two white Border Patrol SUVs. I wonder how long it will take them to see me. I click off a few exposures along the fence, when I notice, through the long lens, the dust from their tires. Here they come. I take the chair back to the truck and place it near the back bumper. Going to have to explain myself as it is. Don’t want to have to explain why I have a toddler’s rocking chair with me too. I sling my 70-200 over my shoulder and wait for the boys to arrive.

Doesn’t take long

I walk up to them first.

“How’s it going,” I say.

“OK, how are you?” says BP #1.

“I’m OK,” I say. “I’m a photographer from Tucson and I was photographing in the Buenos Aires, and thought I would come down here and take a look at the fence.”

Now that’s a lie. I came down specifically to shoot the border.

“Oh,” says BP #1, “Do you work for a newspaper?”

“No,” I say. “I’m just a freelancer.”

As we talk, BP #2 flanks me, putting himself at a 90 degree angle and more from BP #1, so he’s just out of my periphery vision. That pisses me off but I don’t say anything. Really? You got to fucking flank me? I know it’s your training but come on, dude.

We talk a little bit. BP #2 makes the diseased-Mexican joke that only he laughs at. I thank them for doing what they do to rescue people who are dying in the desert. BP #1 tells me a story about how he’s worked for the Border Patrol since 1998 and in the 2000’s, he saved many people’s lives.

“It was really bad back then,” he says, with true sadness in his voice. “One time I thought it was only 15 people dehydrated. Ended up being over 50 but we helicoptered them all out and nobody died that day.”

Then BP #2 says his second Trumpian remark.

“Yeah,” he scoffs, “they have turns us away from being law enforcement and now we are just search and rescue.”
I don’t say anything. I think, ‘asshole.’ But he is still flanking me. And he is armed.

We talk a few more minutes, then we say our goodbyes.

BP #1 wasn’t a bad guy. Pleasant, courteous, seemingly compassionate. Granted I have three things in my favor. One, I’m white. Two, I’m male. Three, I’m old. As they drive back to their perch to the east, I thought BP #2 and even BP #1 probably wouldn’t have been quite so friendly if I was a lone young Hispanic woman with a camera. I could be wrong, but I don’t think I am.

I retrieve Pamela’s chair and start shooting again. BP #1 and #2 have returned to where they were before, a mile or less away. I take a shot of the PBRC sitting at the base of the fence. Then, in my mind’s eye, I see the shot. I can see it in black and white. It’s evocative, political, sad. Yep, that’s the shot.

I walk over, pick up Pamela’s chair and hang it upside down in the razor wire. Its placement in the wire compositionally works good, the first time I hang it. Good. I don’t have time to mess around with it and I don’t think the Border Patrol would like me doing this. I need to shoot quick. I shoot the crap out of this with the long lens, many exposures bracketed and framed. I’m not coming back for a second go-round. I look at the back of my Canon. I think I got it but I won’t know until I get back to the studio. I take an insurance image with my iPhone. I look east to see if BP #1 and #2 have moved. Nope. Just sitting there in their vehicles. I best not push it. I walk to the fence, reach up and free the chair. I walk back to the Pathfinder and stow it in the back.

Then I just gaze at the wall for a while. I think of how fear builds this things. Back in the day, the border was relatively open. Tohono O’odham and Pasqua Yaquis native people would travel back and forth with regularity. Sure, smugglers would cross too with bales of marijuana and cocaine, but also, young men and women and sometimes whole families would take the trek north, looking for employment opportunities, many sadly misled by the coyotes who they had given tens of thousands of pesos to take them to Phoenix. Then they would leave them a few hundred yards on this side of the border and tell them, ‘Those lights over there is Phoenix. It’s not far. Walk that way,.’ What the immigrants were really seeing were the lights of the small town of Sells on the T.O. Reservation, maybe 20 miles away. Phoenix is over 120 miles at best.

I sigh. Good news bad news. Good news, less people are dying in the Sonoran Desert now then in the early 2000’s. The economy in Mexico is a little bit better and it’s somewhat harder to find good work in the U.S. now. Bad news, xenophobic, old, angry, white men are pushing policies to separate refugee children from their parents at the border. Billions of dollars are being spent just a few miles to the West to make an even taller wall, just so ignorant white people in Omaha don’t feel irrationally afraid, while rocking on their front porches at night.

It’s so fucked up.

Trump isn’t really the problem, or not the whole problem. He’s a symptom. It’s his political party and the people they represent. The Republican Party leaders sold out their conservative values so frightened, ignorant white people would continue to vote for them and keep them in power. They sold their souls to the Devil and now the Devil want his due.

Throughout our entire history as a country, a good third of all voting adults have at best, been ignorant and fearful, and at worse, mendacious, greedy, racist, sexist pricks. It was true in the year 1801, and in 1901, and in 2001. It’s still true today.

One third.

And where have Trump approval ratings been for the most of his Presidency?

35 to 40 %.

That’s right.

One third.

But I do take great solace in the fact that 60 to 70% of Americans are not that way. They may be more conservative than I, or even more liberal, but they are not bad people. They are raising their kids, trying to be good people in the worlds where they walk and work, and are, at the very least, considerate of people who are different from them. They are good people. They work hard. They love their families and some love God too.

But as the old saying goes, one bad apple spoils the whole bunch, and the chief bad apple in the fall of 2019 is President Donald J. Trump.

I take the long way home, through washes full of sand that are rationally scary as hell to me but I got through them; past an old ranch cemetery of the Garcia family, with new marble headstones to replace the old soft ones, where the names and dates of the dead have been rubbed away by the blowing desert winds and the heat of many Arizona summers; past a huge Ocotillo grove of tall straight plants, that tempted me to stop and saw a few of their stalks off, so I can making walking sticks out of them; popping in and out of the little town of Sasabe, mostly empty now, with its large Border Patrol presence, but it stills hold a colorful charm of the small Southwestern border town, with his pastel painted homes and the smell of someone cooking beef nearby; through another Border Patrol checkpoint north of Arivaca, where this old white man is quickly waved through; and back on Interstate 19 and north to home, the lights of Tucson twinkles as I arrive after dark.

Only one bad thing really happened on this trip: I think I knocked the front end out of alignment. It’s pulling to the right like a son of a bitch but that can be easily fixed by the talented techs at Gibbs Automotive. (A purposeful plug for Mike Sams and his shop.)

I arrive back at my studio.

I unload the truck.

Now let’s see what’s on these CF cards.

Posted at 01:40 PM in Canyons, Cars, Current Affairs, Deserts, Emotions, Home, Mountains, Native People, Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, People, Photography, Politics, Social Justice, The Border, The West | Permalink | Comments (0)

August 10, 2019

Obelisks, Hoops & Chairs

"Obelisk, Washington, DC" (c) Image capture by Stu Jenks, from a 1961 postcard.

Posted at 01:56 AM in Ancestors, Arizona, Black & White Photography, Canyons, Dartmoor, Emotions, Faith, Family, Fezziwig Press, Forgiveness, Home, Hope, Humor, Love, Marriage, Nannie's Mirror, Native People, Nocturnal Photography, North Carolina, Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Prayer, Sepia, Spirituality, Stu Jenks, The Arizona Trail, The Border, The Indian Wars, The Poor, The Road, The West, Travel, Tucson, Valleys, Virginia, Washington, DC, Women | Permalink | Comments (0)

January 10, 2019

Stories from the Toole Shed, celebrating its 25+ years. (Owl's Head Hoop Dance #2: For James Graham)

The Toole Shed 25 Year Anniversary Thing.

In 1992, The Toole Shed in Tucson, Arizona was born. It was a difficult labor but the baby arrived with 100 fingers and 100 toes.

James Graham asked me to do a little something for the 25 year anniversary thing. I hope to be able to travel from my new home in Greensboro, North Carolina, back to my true hometown of Tucson in May for the celebration, but I don’t know if I’ll be able to. But I surely can raise two hands in praise for those heady times in the 2000’s when I was a part of the tribe, and I can share a story or two, and a photograph or three.

I really hope I can make it in May. Love and miss you all.

Owl’s Head Hoop Dance #2, Arizona
(Ode to The Toole Shed Darkroom)
Spring and Summer, 2002

Excerpts from Stu Jenks’ book:
Hoop Dancing: More Journeys Through Nocturnal Photography.
Fezziwig Press: 2009.

    I blow the negative with a blast of canned air. The negative carrier rests on a small light table. I bend over with my loupe and look for dust. Damn. Still a couple of pieces of lint. I blow the negative carrier again with air, doing my best to rid it of all dust. It'll be a white spot on the finished print if I don’t eliminate it now. And I really hate spotting prints. Unless you are really good at it, you can still tell when you’ve spotted a final print with a brushed dot of colored ink. I look again through my loupe at the negative. I think I got it all now. I hope. I'll find out once I do a test print or two.
    I place the carrier holder in the color enlarger, between the lamp and the focusing lens. I gently pull down the lamp housing to secure the carrier. I've already set up my easel to print a 7 x 7 inch image on 8 x 10 inch paper. Now I just need to focus it. I turn on the enlarger lamp and crank the enlarger head up and down to get a rough size of the image and then I bend down close to the easel with my focusing mirror, reaching high above my head to the fine focusing knob on the enlarger. No filters right now, f-stop wide open for focusing. Back and forth, between almost sharp and spot-on sharp, looking for the grain to pop in the mirror. Pop. There it is.
    I stop the enlarger down to f16, very gently turning the aperture, so as not to move the enlarger very much. This is a very old Omega color head enlarger and it doesn't like to be bumped. Very delicate, this old machine. It already has a threaded bar that runs from the metal frame through the old sheet rock wall to the north. This jury-rigging is there to add stability and hopefully keep it level. But when a train goes by, just a few feet north of the darkroom, the whole room shakes, enlarger included. (I've often thought it would be fun to make prints as the trains go by, just to see how wonderfully fuzzy those images would be. The whole of the Toole Shed borders the tracks.)
    I'm in the Toole Shed Darkroom, here in the Toole Shed, in the Historic Warehouse District of Downtown Tucson. Doesn't that sound quaint? Well, it’s not really. Across the street is Pleasure World, a video porno store that fronts a male prostitution business. Perhaps the only pornography store in America that shares a common wall with a courthouse, in this case, the Tucson City Court. The courthouse parking lot is where most of the nighttime prostitution business is transacted. James Graham and other Toole Shed residents have called the police on many occasions but they don't seem interested. Makes James mad as a hornet. I don’t blame him.
Speaking of James Graham, it's through his generosity that I'm printing here tonight, and other nights too.
    Maybe a little history about the Toole Shed and the Warehouse District are in order. I could be wrong about some of the facts here. In fact, I’m sure I am. Please forgive me. The Toole Shed is truly a mystical place, living in the land of soft myth as much as in hard reality.
    So here goes.

    Back in the early 1980's, The City of Tucson (The City) and the Arizona Department of Transportation (ADOT) decided to widen and improve the Aviation Parkway, a relatively unused East-West thoroughfare that runs parallel to the Southern Pacific railroad tracks, east of downtown. A city bond came up on the ballot and the people of Tucson voted for The City to have the money for that construction. Then, the City and ADOT decided that since now that the Aviation Parkway was going to be so wide and new, it made sense to connect it to Interstate 10 that runs just west of Downtown. About a mile separates the Interstate, from the western end of Aviation Parkway. Only problem was how to get the two roads together. The City and ADOT came up with another bond issue to get the money to build The Last Mile. They were confident that it would pass, since the first bond passed easily. In preparation, ADOT bought all the land along the tracks between the Aviation Parkway and I-10, except the Tucson Electric Power (TEP) building, a large eight-story office structure. They'd worry about TEP later. On the land they bought were a series of old decaying warehouses. Legend has it that they were owned by a number of prominent Tucsonans and that ADOT paid way over market value for them. (I believe it's called a Sweetheart Deal.) Rank has its privilege I suppose. And its corruption. Anyway, ADOT bought the land and the old buildings and the bond came up on the ballot and it went down hard to defeat. The people said No to The Last Mile. Now, The City had egg on its face and ADOT was stuck with old rundown buildings it paid too much money for. But the City and ADOT held onto some hope that, in the future, another bond would pass to pay for the piece of road.
    It's now the year 2002 and we still don't have the Last Mile. A spiffier Aviation Parkway but no Last Mile.
    But that ended up being good for us artists. Here’s how.
    ADOT was stuck with these buildings but they couldn't do anything with them for they were slated for demolition, but the road never came, and the warehouses just sat fallow. The homeless began to live in some of them. Then some artists contacted ADOT in the late 1980’s/early 90’s and said that they would love to use the warehouses for art studios. We'll put in all the sweat equity, they said. And we'll clean and fix them up, and pay you a little rent too, the artists told ADOT. And they won't be such an eye sore, and you'd be helping the artists of Tucson have affordable studio space. ADOT agreed. James, his wife Julia, Dave Lewis and a number of other people went into the warehouse on the corner of Toole and 6th and began the long process of making it livable and workable. They worked very hard and very long to get this done. They named the building The Toole Shed, after the avenue outside and the tools inside. They have been on a month-to-month lease for over a dozen years now. ADOT fixed the roof this year but not until much asking, pleading and prodding. The rent’s paid (mostly) and ADOT is reasonably happy in the ‘no news is good news’ idea. The residents and artists of the Toole Shed do repairs and maintenance as they come up.
    The Toole Shed has some legends attached to it as well. Perhaps true, perhaps myth, perhaps a little bit of both. It’s said that Air America, the CIA-run airline that sent goods and arms through Laos during the Vietnam War, ran shipments through the Toole Shed on their way out of the country. It is also said that during Prohibition, there was a speakeasy in the basement of the Toole Shed, where black and white porno films were shown and bathtub liquor was served. The Shriners, at one time, even stored their sequined costumes in the Toole Shed basement.
    Now, The Toole Shed is home to over fifteen art studios, a darkroom and most recently, Tucson’s Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA), a project of James, Julia, and other patrons and artists in town.
    The darkroom was a creation of James and Julia’s hard work. Story goes that Julia built the sinks for James as a birthday present, and then James assembled the counters, scrounged the cabinets, and found the enlarger. The color paper processor, it's said, was brought by somebody and then just left there. Some stories in the Toole Shed do one of two things: They get bigger and more elaborate with each telling, so a story of a mouse becomes a story of a moose, or they shrink and become very small, so a story of a art couple drinking, fighting and fucking all the time in one of the studios just fades away after they are no longer tenants, their names forgotten. Anyway, the darkroom is huge by darkroom standards, probably a couple hundred square feet, a trapezoidal shaped room with a high ceiling and plenty of room for dancing and moving around. James is a tall thin man who prints color photos that are 30 x 36 inches. Great big prints of hazardous materials and other mysteriously beautiful things. Wonderful prints from a great big rock and roll darkroom.
    This night, Steve Roach's "Lost Pieces" are playing on the boom box in the darkroom as I focus the enlarger. I'm printing color tonight. The ratty old Hope Color Processor clunks away on the other side of the room. It is old, but it does just fine. Most times, that is. It has no replenisher reservoir, which is a bit of a drag, for the chemicals become old in about four days, but you can still do quite a bit of printing in half a week. I'm printing black and white negatives onto Fuji Crystal Archive Color Paper. 8 by 10s, 11 by 14s and a few 16 x 20s. Good sizes. The red light overhead isn't on in the darkroom, like in black and white paper printing though. With color paper, you print in complete darkness.
    I turn out all the lights, and take out an 8 x 10-inch piece of paper from the Fuji Box, and by touch, place it in the easel below the enlarger. I’m making a test strip first, to get my exposure times for the final prints. I check to make sure the Fuji box is closed, to ward against light leaking on the paper and accidentally trashing it. I reach toward the timer to my left that has been set at two-second intervals of exposure light. With my right hand, I find an 8 x 10 inch piece of cardboard and place it over 4/5 of the paper that is to be exposed... (I know this section of the story is tedious as hell, but I thought a full description of chemical darkroom color photo printing should be written down in details somewhere, so just in case, in say 100 or 200 years from now, folks might want to know how we did it.) ...I hit the timer with my left forefinger. Two seconds of f16 light falls on the easel and the paper. I move the cardboard off the easel about a 1/5, an inch and a half or so, and hit the timer again. Two more seconds. Back off another 1/5. Hit the timer. Two seconds more. Back off the cardboard another 1/5 of the length of the paper. Hit the timer switch again. Two seconds of "Hoop Dance #2" falls on the Fuji paper. Now I take the cardboard completed away from the easel. Hit the timer one last time. Last two seconds of enlarger light. The afterglow of the enlarger lamp fades to black.
    I lift the top of the easel and take out the 8 x 10 inch piece of paper and I walk in the complete darkness to the Hope Color Processor 15 feet away. There is a tiny piece of fluorescent tape on the processor to guide me, but it's old hat to me now. I've walked back and forth in the dark a lot in this darkroom. Like a blind person, my body remembers how many steps it is to the processor, where the handle to the lid is, how to get back to the enlarger, etc. Half the fun is the process of making these prints.     Making magic in the dark. And part of the magic is working in full darkness.
    I place the Fuji Crystal Archive Paper in the slot that feeds the paper through the processor, close the lid, and walk in the dark to the light switch on the other side of the room. I turn it on, and it’s instantly big time bright. I squint a little. My eyes adjust. I have seven minutes to wait until the print comes out of the other end of the processor. I light a smoke and sway to Steve’s electronically manipulated drums and think back to that night near Owl's Head when I shot “Hoop Dance #2”

    Not much Moon to speak of. A half moon sliver to the east, obscured in cloud. I wonder if this'll work. There is still some dusk light to the west, but it’ll be gone soon.
    The massive rock protrusions of Owl’s Head are farther away than usual. I'm not at my regular sacred place, with its shallow fire pit, quaint rock seats and emotionally familiar ground. I'm north at a relatively unknown wash to me. But I need a wash with trees to do what I’m thinking of doing.
    My Pathfinder’s parked partly in the desert, with just enough room for another vehicle to pass, on this one lane 4 x 4 dirt path in the Tortillita Mountains. I don't think I need to worry about company. I've been coming out here at night, for a good long while now and have only seen one car at night in all those years. But famous last words, I park my truck in the road and sure enough someone will come. And I really need the truck to stay in one place for most of the evening.
    I pop the hatchback and pull out the hula-hoop, the power converter and a hell of a lot of extension cord. I go inside of the cab and connect the converter to the cigarette lighter and look for the power light on the unit to glow ‘on.’ Good. I go and get three long rolls of drop cords. One by one, I unloop the cords, and plug the first cord into the converter and slowly walking down the hill to the wash, connecting the second and third cords as I go. I continue through the wash and walk behind some small Mesquite trees to the estimated furthest distance I'll go with the hula-hoop tonight. It'll be easier to pull cord back to the truck then to pull the cord away from it.
    I start up the truck and let it idle. I grab the hula-hoop with its 100 tightly wrapped Christmas lights and walk through the wash to the end of the extension cord. I plug in the hoop.
    The wash explodes with light, even in the waning dusk.
    "Wow!" I say to myself, “I think this’ll be plenty of light.”
    My Rollei medium format camera, loaded with Ilford Delta 400 film, already sits on its tripod on a nearby hill, with depth of field calculated, the focus 2/3’s out, and the f-stop at F 5.6. It's good to go. Now the hoop and cords are ready. Just need to wait a few more minutes for it to get a little darker.
    Ten minutes pass.
    "Ok. Let's do it."
    God, let me know when I need to close the shutter for this is an almost moonless shoot. Help me to close the shutter after the right amount of time. Where am I? I’m here. What time is it? It’s now.
    I walk up the hill to my camera and check to see if the lit hoop is out of the frame. Yep, sure is. I open the shutter and walk back down into the wash. Grabbing the hula-hoop, I swing it from left to right, back and forth, pulling the extension cord with my right hand as I dance through the wash. I hit a tree with the hoop.
    "God damn it,” I say to no one but me.
    I pull the cords and the hoop back out of the frame to the left. I walk up the hill, close the shutter, advance the film, check again to see if the hoop is out of frame, and I then open the shutter again.
    “Slow, Stu,” I whisper to myself, “Dance with it. Dance.”
    I dance again through the wash, swinging the hoop, high and low. This time I miss the tree. It feels good, this hoop dance. I drop the hoop far to the right out of the frame and go up to my truck to check on the time. There’s some glow still to the west from the long-setted Sun and some glow to the south from the distant city lights of Tucson. Hmm. 10 minutes should do. I turn on Elvis Costello's new CD on my truck’s player. I wait and sing along. After ten minutes, I go to my camera and close the shutter. Looking at the sky, there’s only the faint glow of the Tucson lights to the south. No light to speak of from the west and the Moon is still playing hide and seek in the clouds. Hell, let's do it anyway. I reposition the hoop to the east, open the shutter and dance again. I love the dancing part. I love making big light curves. I place the hoop on the ground again, outside of the frame, and head to the truck again. No tunes this time. I check the time and go for a walk up the road away from the wash. Twenty minute exposure this time.
Beautiful night. No rain lately. Plenty of cool air in the washes. Just lovely.
    I turn around wondering if I can see the lit hula hoop. A hundred yards away or so, I spy the hoop glowing through the Palo Verde and Mesquite trees, looking like something from another time and place, creating a wondrously magical light that is both alien and familiar. Pity. Would be a nothing photograph from this distance, unless I had a very long lens (which I don’t), yet it's a big-time-somethin’ experience, right here, right now.
    I'm kind of struck by my own work tonight and my own process. That rarely happens, that I get reflective or impressed during a shoot, for I'm mostly focused on the getting the shot I want and not messing up, and I’m not that impressive with myself in general anyway. I just do what I do. But from this distance, I'm feel more detached from the work, yet more connected to that hula-hoop of light.
    A mentor long ago, once said, that when you find two seemingly contradictory yet absolutely complete truths, look for the paradox that resides in-between them, for there you will find an even greater truth.
Looking at the hoop in the distance, I sense that larger truth. Fleeting yet permanent. Solid yet fluid. Hard but soft. Real but otherworldly. Truth yet an illusion.
    Hmm. Would make a good vision statement for the next Arizona Biennial, wouldn’t it? I crack a little smile. Don’t get too deep now, Stu. Just get the shot.

    The 8 x 10 Fuji Crystal Archive Paper flops into the exit tray of the processor. Looking at the test strip, I like the brown color and it appears that seven seconds of light from the enlarger is about right for a 8 x 10. I turn out the light, load the easel again with a fresh piece of paper, expose it and walk to the processor again. I get off course and hit a stool I didn’t know was there hard with my right big toe.
    "Ouch" I yell.
    I hobble to the Hope Processor and load the print into it. I limp back to the enlarger and expose another seven-second print, just for good measure. Darkness again. Missing the stool this time. Feeding the Hope. Turning on the light.
    Seven minutes later, both prints are out. They seem a bit too dark. I'll expose at 6.6 seconds next time. Also, they seem a little boring, with just the simple sepia color. Then I have an idea. I'm sure I'm not the first to think this, but I'm wondering what would happen if I extremely burned in the sky of this black and white negative onto this color paper? What color would it make? What if I use no filters during the burn? Just a straight white light burn.
    I try out my idea. After the 6.6 second initial exposure, I feather in the sky with a piece of cardboard, obscuring most of the bottom piece of the paper in shadow but allowing another 6.6 second of white light to burn in the sky. After burning, printing and processing, I see the result.
    The sky becomes a reddish orange, giving the illusion of the colors of sunset, yet the lines of the hoop dancing are still fine, bright and sharp, and the wash keeps its rich sepia color. This is good. Very good. I repeat the printing process a number of times, making six 8 x 10 Fuji prints.
    It's going well in the darkroom tonight. I’m grateful of that. Some nights, it seems the darkroom fairies wreak havoc on me. Some printing sessions, the dust never gets off the negative, or I make silly beginner's mistakes or I can never dial in the exposure times or the colors correctly. But tonight, my print burning and dodging is reasonable, and my guesses on exposures are close if not right on the first try. Six good prints. Hap, hap, happy.
    Now let's pull out the 16 x 20 inch paper and go for the gold.
    But first, I think I'll walk next door and get a soda out of the Toole Shed soda machine. The Hope Processor clunks away. I'm shirtless in shorts and it's after midnight on a Friday night. I leave the darkroom and walk down the hall to the front door of the East End of the Toole Shed. I open the never-locked painted plate glass door and then unlock the always-locked yellow steel-bar door. I relock the door and turning, I notice that Pleasure World and the parking lot of City Court are hopping tonight. It is a Friday night, after all. Lots of cars. A number of cross-dressed men walk from car to car. No biggie to me. Whatever gets you through the night. I'm mostly thinking about Owl’s Head Hoop Dance #2, and the big print I'm about to attempt. Will the processor hold up? Will I need to rewash the big prints, because sometimes old rubber processor crud gets on the prints. Should I set up a couple of separate wash trays? Will the darkroom fairies be kind? I hear whistling from the parking lot across the street. I pay it no mind, thinking about f-stops, timers, and trays of water. I unlock the door to the main Toole Shed, go inside and get a soda from the machine. Exiting the main section and locking it back up, I hear whistling again and then I heard someone yell.
    "Hey sweetie. You're cute," I hear a masculine-feminine voice say.
    I look over at the parking lot across the way and seeing two women or rather men, looking at me. Suddenly I realize the whistling a few minutes before was for my benefit. I look away and continuing toward my door, very aware of the eyes of hungry men on me. I'm OK with women checking me out (which is almost never), but having a male prostitute giving me the up and down is giving me the willies. I bet this is how women feel all the time.
    "He is cute!" I hear another voice say, from across the street.
    I say nothing. As I unlock the East End door, I become aware of my clothes or rather lack there of. All I have on is a pair of tattered blue jean shorts, old jogging shoes, and no shirt. I smile. No wonder I'm getting catcalls from Pleasure World. I’m basically naked.
    "I love this town," I whisper with a smile, and then I lock the door behind me and quickly forget about the prostitutes across the way. My mind shifts to thinking about all of that virgin 16 x 20 inch Fuji paper in the great big box, and my hopes that I’ll create a good print or two tonight.
    I enter the darkroom and look at my 8 x 10s on the counter of the Owl’s Head Hoop Dance #2. Lovely orange, strong sepia, solid design.
    I’m a grateful man, a happy man, a lucky man.

Posted at 09:09 AM in Arizona, Art, Black & White Photography, Cactus, Canyons, Chemical Darkroom, Coalmine Canyon, Current Affairs, Deserts, Emotions, Faith, Fezziwig Press, Good Folk, Greensboro, NC, Humor, Love, Money, Moon, Mountains, Night Photography, Nocturnal Photography, North Carolina, Other Artists, Other Writers, Photography, Sepia, Stars, Stu Jenks, The Arizona Trail, The Border, The Moon, The Road, The Sky, The West, Toole Shed, Travel, Trees, Tucson, Utah | Permalink | Comments (0)

November 02, 2018

Welcome to North Carolina.

Well, Alexa and I are here in North Carolina now. My studio is all set up upstairs. My art work hangs in the same house as a Rembrandt, an Utrillo and a Whistler. I'm looking for fuller employment. Alexa has a job she likes. I'm getting my bearings around town. Beautiful town, beautiful wife. I'm loving this small city of Greensboro.

My new P.O. Box is 10583, Greensboro, NC 27404. Email, phone, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, my store, my bandcamp, my patreon, all the same. Fezziwig Press is back open for business.

And look for my 14th book for sale later this month.

Cherry Picking Leviticus (Pamela's Baby Rocking Chair, Vol. 2). Here's the cover for the premium paperback. It'll also be available as an affordable ebook.

I'll keep you post on it's release. You'll have it in your hot little hands by Christmas. Promise.

And vote on Tuesday, November 6th, my birthday. Give me the gift I really want. A Democratic U.S. House of Representatives, no Republican super majority in the North Carolina General Assembly, and good Progressives down ballot in many states.

Below are some recent images.

Have a great Autumn.

And keep hope alive.