Stu Jenks' Fezziwig Press: Walking Sticks

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 stujenks@gmail.com 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 stujenks@gmail.com 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