Christopher Jordan is a photographer and Professor of Art and Art History at the University of Alabama in Tuscaloosa. His photography engages many styles, ranging from classical, large-format, black-and-white images to the experimental, material-based digital images one sees in this collection. A common denominator in all his work is a sense of place and how photography can be used for reflection, memory, and contemplation. Jordan also maintains an intensive “householder” spiritual practice, integrating yoga, meditation, and mindfulness into his life and work. Jordan’s photographs have appeared in Diffusion: Unconventional Photography, Lenscratch, the national traveling photography exhibition, “Spinning Yarns,” and numerous exhibitions in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Jordan’s Website is www.jordanphoto.com.
Hank Lazer retired in 2014 from his positions as Associate Provost for Academic Affairs, Executive Director of Creative Campus, and Professor of English at the University of Alabama. He continues to teach seminars on Zen Buddhism and Radical Approaches to the Arts. He has published thirty-one books of poetry, most recently Slowly Becoming Awake (N32) (Dos Madres Press, 2019), Poems that Look Just Like Poems (PURH, 2019), Evidence of Being Here: Beginning in Havana (N27) (Negative Capability Press, 2018), and Thinking in Jewish (N20) (Lavender Ink, 2018). Lazer’s poems have been published widely in England, France, Italy, and China, and he has performed jazz-poetry improvisations in the United States and Cuba with musicians Davey Williams, Omar Pérez, Andrew Raffo Dewar, and Holland Hopson, among others. Lazer has given readings and talks throughout the United States and in England, France, Canada, Cuba, and China. Video installations of his work, in collaboration with Holland Hopson and Jane Cassidy, have appeared in galleries in the U.S. In 2015, Lazer received the Harper Lee Award, the State of Alabama’s most prestigious literary prize, for lifetime achievement in literature.
