NIRVANA project introduction...

Nirvana Project Statement

Do you remember who introduced you to the band Nirvana?

The text and images supplied from each participant answer this question by featuring their past culture maven: a friend, sibling, or relative responsible for passing along the rock n roll baton. Amidst adolescence, this baton, whether music, clothes, or carnal knowledge, reforms our identity in devastatingly wonderful ways. This project is dedicated to those who gave us our next perspective.

if you can answer this question, please consider submitting:
jasonlazarus.photo@gmail.com

nirvava entry

grant pulled me into skateboarding and thus music. we used to skate in a church parking lot, and the music we blared eventually included my first experience with Nevermind. right after i took this shot of grant, the police pulled up to hassle us for skating so we ran and hid in the YMCA bathroom.

nirvana entry

Stephen in 1994. he was the first of us to hit puberty and more importantly, the first to have sex. I haven’t spoken to him for years…

nirvana entry

Dave was my cover boyfriend in high school. He introduced me to Nirvana, mushrooms, and butterfly sticker tattoos. He carved my name into his arm with a razor blade and when I tried to break up with him, he read me a love poem over the phone that I later recognized as a song from “Dark Side of the Moon” with my name inserted at significant moments.

thank you tema, one of my first photo teachers who submitted this entry. look at her smart/beautiful work at http://www.temastauffer.com/

nirvana entry

Ryan, my older brother (left). he played them all the time while he babysat me. i was 8 and he was 15. when i was a bit older he'd always include them on mixtapes he made me.

nirvana entry

Josh, my older stepbrothers friend. he would come to our house after school and hangout, allowing me to hang out in their room against my stepbrothers wishes. one day he brought over nevermind and i worshipped them like i worshipped him.

nirvana entry

i dated dave (left), bassist of Oklahoma City's Captain Eyeball. He inroduced me to a number of my favorite bands and labels, mostly 4AD and Sub Pop, The Pixies, Tones on Tail, Sonic Youth... it was from him that I first heard Bleach and liked it right away

nirvana entry

Craig Doty. He threw a party when he turned 21 whose soundtrack was all grunge music and I had never listened to Nirvana until then. That night was the turning point. I woke up in an 2 foot wide alley outside between a building and a fence. --dirk

nirvana entry

My step-dad Mike pretty much introduced me to all music. I remember finding Nevermind
in his private CD collection. Photo circa 1989.

thank you timothy briner!!! i want to touch it too!

nirvana entry

My father introduced me to all grunge music --Jessye

nirvana entry

becky was my neurotic friend who had a stalker in high school who came to her bedroom window repeatedly. while playing with the taser her mom bought her in her bedroom, becky played In Utero for me...soon after i bought it

nirvana entry

I grew up in Denmark and went to a public school that every year sent all
the 8th graders on a skiing trip to Norway. We were all 14 years old, but ended
up hanging out with all these 19 - 20 year old Norwegian guys, that had a
party every night that primarily consisted of Nirvana's "Nevermind" CD and
home brewed both beer and 90% alcohol. My best friend Anja (pictured), bought the CD a few days after we returned home, I followed soon hereafter.

nirvana entry

My friend Phil (left) introduced me (right) to Nevermind when we were 14. He got everything from his older sister Laura...

thanks Paul!

greg stimac review in Sun Times

America at work in modest 'Mowing'

April 13, 2007

BY MARGARET HAWKINS Gallery Glance

"Mowing the Lawn" is one of those great little photo shows that impresses and pleases not through its ambitions but through its modesty, creeping up with a subject that takes on mythic proportions only when we start to study it. In a series of photos of this most mundane yet ritualized of activities, Greg Stimac presents views into the sociology of the middle class and the American work ethic, all set against a backdrop of architectural styles.

The natural, layered staging of house, yard, man -- or woman -- with mower is ready-made theater, pageantry almost. We get a sense of pride of ownership, eccentricities of taste and a wide range of tolerance for clutter and downright mess, not to mention an eye-opening view of the sartorial choices made by the mowers.

» Click to enlarge image

Greg Stimac’s “Mowing the Lawn” photographs are on exhibit at the Bucket Rider gallery through April 28.

Grass-cutting takes on almost ritual meaning in these photos, the act of passing back and forth over a patch of earth -- sometimes no living grass can be seen -- seems here like a rite of possession, an almost animalistic marking of territory. Sometimes shown as meditative, sometimes as fiercely industrious, all Stimac's subjects are serious. There is no irony here, just curiosity and the gentlest kind of humor. The mowers are never made to seem foolish.

Conspicuously absent are those who don't do it themselves but employ the services of landscape gardeners, and these photos make it look like those folks hardly qualify as homeowners at all. For here, mowing the lawn is more than just cutting grass; it's a way of bonding with and wresting order out of that little patch of land one owns.

Greg Stimac, "Mowing the Lawn," Bucket Rider, 835 W. Washington; (312) 421-6993. Through April 28.

Kafka, student bedroom, University of Chicago

Kafka's gaze is piercingly clear, with sontag to the left...trying to figure out the other 3

new project--"The last rose of summer on my night stand"

installation study, "The last rose of summer on my nightstand" (everything)
dimensions variable
2007


'Last rose' detail

'Last rose' detail #2

'Last rose' detail #3 (features installation title image at approximate center of installation)

this is the first stab at a project statement:

The last rose of summer on my night stand

Inspired by the back of a vintage snapshot found in spring 2007, the project The last rose of summer on my night stand examines the way we see, think, record, and live with our own images.

Installations, consisting from 2 to 150 images, are comprised of photographs mounted image-facing-the-wall. The audience is left with text the photographer (or family archivist) has written on the back of the image. The text on the rear of the image becomes the conflation of the sign, signifier, and referent, creating new meanings not only for the images, but for the notion of reading images. By curating the text-images into installations, I trace a continuum from large installations open to nebulous networks of meaning to smaller, theme-based groupings that mine shared sensibilities of image genres and text characteristics.

Sentiment begins and ends this project, as the viewer is always tied to text-images removed from their original creator and recorder, vestiges of our compulsion to record…

installation study

"Larey caverns Virginia, Dream Lake" (places we've been)
installation variable
2007



installation detail #1


installation detail #2


installation detail #3 featuring title image

regarding living with a portrait series

i am trying to meet elizabeth sheetz mentioned in the article below...arthur is unreachable in prison for 2 years...

described below is a pretty interesting prison sentence. i don't think i necessarily agree with a sentence like this, seems like not cruel but unusual punishment...

Victim's Photo Part of Florida Man's Sentence for Vehicular Homicide

Sunday, March 25, 2007

• E-MAIL STORY
• PRINTER FRIENDLY VERSION

BARTOW, Fla. — A man who pleaded guilty to vehicular homicide will have to display a large picture of his victim in his home after serving two years in prison, a judge has ordered.

After getting out of prison, Arthur Pierce, 31, will have to prominently display a photograph at least 2 feet wide of his victim, 17-year-old Chelsi Gregory, wherever he is living. Circuit Judge Robert Doyel said below the photograph must be "respectful lettering that says: 'I'm sorry I killed you."'

Pierce's probation officer will also be allowed to search his residence at any time. If he does not have the photograph displayed, it will be considered a probation violation, Doyel said. An advocate for Mothers Against Drunk Driving, Elizabeth Sheetz, requested the photograph be part of Pierce's sentence, according to The Ledger of Lakeland.

Click here for FOXNews.com's Crime center.

Pierce and his cousin Christopher Pierce, 27, were racing on a busy street on the afternoon of March 24, 2005 when they caused the accident that killed Gregory. Witnesses told police Arthur Pierce was swerving in and out of traffic and driving at speeds of about 120 mph, in a 45 mph zone, when his Cadillac collided with a pickup in which Gregory was a passenger. The prosecutor in the case said alcohol was also a factor, the paper reported.

neko

'sad songs sung in a happy way are 8 times more sad than a sad song sung in a sad way'
--neko case as heard on npr this past week

agreed. listen to buddy holly's 'it doesn't matter anymore'

another study, 'last rose of summer...'

remember, click on images for a larger view

"first haircut, 1923" (occassions)
10 images, installation variable
2007


detail and installation title below:

another study, 'last rose of summer...'

entitled, "grandma hamilton with pearls" (people)
12 images, dimensions variable
2007



detail and installation title image: