Location: The Business of Art Gallery Manitou Springs Colorado.

The Show                              Sara Mojdehdart Photographer.
Her grand mother died and she was unable to make the funeral. Sara is Iranian American Had travel there can be difficult. Six months later she got to her home in Iran and made a photo essay about the thoughts of the women in the family. Sadness and loss still permeates her photos. Her prints are large and straight forward digital printing.
I sit in the center of the prints and try and find a beginning  Moydeh sits with dry pipes in-front of her and a pair of handsome chickens cross the foreground she looks sad beyond emotion.
Saheila and an older woman share another portrait of sad happenings. Strong design weights this picture to the right side of the photo.
A woman sits in a room very middle class with her portraits of older men from Black and white to color the the woman's black dress is counterpointed by a gold mirror. The picture is an inventory of several lives.
The only smile in this show is the child Mobina A child with carpets and pillows joy is limited to children.
Then come the show theme are scarf from behind worn by Purisa. she is tying it a blow you away shot strong on action and design.
Sara vanishes in this show and becomes one with the images, she handles her tools well without repletion or false images. Photography can reach though the ego into the moment. This show took me back to death of my grandmother and the sadness that surrounds memory.Sara's work is gripping but not emotional ripping. I look forward to seeing more of Sara's work

"What did you Learn In School Today?"

Dawn means a walk with the dog. We wander the town putting on the miles in town. Out of town too much shooting in the half light. I simply do border to border or I look for an image, generally a throwaway.

Last couple of days I noted heavy equipment something that puts man in the environment.
No it is not a shopping mall but rather a school a brand new high school. The old one mysteriously ended up in the hands of the Southern Baptists  the largest drain on the local economy. They build churches and have spread through the water shed like fire on the prairie. Something about the preachers thug in laws. His son in law threatens artists who dare to paint in Ramah a nearby hamlet.
Any way an oil company offered to help build a new but unneeded school with the help of the taxpayers and the Southern Baptists leapt for this like a Great White Shark for a swimmer in a wet suit. Since their congregation votes as they are told bingo we get to pay for a school and they get an office block.Nice real estate deal.
I wonder about myself liking to photograph machinery of destruction. We lose forty acres of bottom  land This is the theme picture.

Forty pleasant acres that used to grow bean and corn,then went to pasture lands when the rains failed. Maybe the school will fail like most businesses here partially because the town is ruled by religious people and not many business or art types get to get near the seats of power. After all the worshipers of the Christ of death, the law and illness need their monuments.
All art work and words are copy Left Cordley Coit 20010-12.all users must inform me of use free to artists and small presses.Other please contact.cordley @gmail .com 719 541 2042 Thank you.

I started  a photo essay last week about Canon City and being myself I started in the nearby town of Florance. Florance was never a contender to be the Capitol like Gunnison and Canon City It was first a mining town then a prison town like Canon City. Florance is understated in its building Florance is understated in it's toughness as well. Florance is the home of AdMax the meanest prison in America, a living hell.

The people in Florance are friendly and out going, Many Italian people came to dig the coal out of the ground and be played off by the coal barons  against the other ethnic groups. The Coal Fields of Colorado were a blood bath of exploding mines, exploitation of workers and the eventual triumph of the Unions.

What we are going to attempt is to look at an area that has been selected for national sacrifice get to know the people targeted to be destroyed and see if there is anything can be done to change the insane path of the destruction or conquest of America.

Doc a Memory

Doc a Memory

1962 The round table at the Renzi was settled into debate about murder I was sitting next to Jeff Kamen, next to him Shirley Jackson, other side of her, Larry Jannifer other side of would be Chester Anderson, maybe next to him would be Michael the Theodor bear. Then me. Then there was Tom Waters novelist in training, and Randall Gerret, poet .When my friend Meridith Hale and Ron Rosen both very bright children simply sat down and joined us, it was part of democratizing our selves. The young man was a bit of a mystery until Chester told me he was a remarkable person, a red diaper baby raised by Stalinist Chinese American Jews His grandfather was the legendary “Big Minh” an invincible Tai Chi Dragon.

Every one there knew that Chester would bring the conversation to catching another murderer. We had one evening stepped outside the Fat Black Pussy Cat Cafe when a body arrived immediately in front of us on MacDougal Street side walk. Chester's philosophy started with Occum and ended with Husserl.

“White male thirty to thirty five years old a cab driver and... junkie hot shot, died over an hour ago. He was assisted out the window by a person of some strength and we best be moving on he's drawing a a crowd.. When the papers mention his death we will know the nationality of the person littering our streets. There may well be an out break of death. the control of the streets has changed hands. People are writing off bad debts. We'd best be moving on.” Ron and I were suitably impressed.

Move the clock forward seventeen years. I was talking with Laura Goldin and Doc Rosen was mentioned. I do a double take when she explains saying “You remember Meredith's friend.” She explained that Doc was in Guatemala doing free work with the indigenous people. A couple of months later we met up at the old Muddies in the Highlands.

We spent a very pleasant evening catching up. Doc was off organizing the Street Medics program or headed up to Rosebud to treat the People there.. A couple of years later I suffered a catastrophic accident. Head an neck injuries can sideline an arts person. And in the Arts the accompanying depression can kill a person. Doc gave me simple diet and told me to check into Kay Starr's class. I noticed that Doc had recovered from being wounded at the Occupation at Wound Knee where a government sniper had shot him. So I took his advise. “Learn martial arts from a woman they cannot afford to lose a fight.. “Being an action photographer I had seen doc and his teams bringing first aid at demonstrations. I would share pictures.

Doc had inherited his grandfather's Tai Chi Drunken Set. He was a master of a very difficult martial art. Done correctly one is close to invincible.

Doc was interested in the spiritual side of human rights and was offended as a Jew with the Israelis murder of Rachael Cory. Doc's politics were “anarco-Stalinist.”

I married one of his patients and he advised us about the the kids, one of them following him into health care and natural healing another a Medic in Portland. Being healthy is each of our responsibility.. We are responsible for the actions of our government as it spreads disease and death. At our last meeting we laughed and joked knowing we might never see each other on this part of the journey... Thanks Doc.

Part 2 The road to Boulder turned rock when the clutch fell out and the started grinding to a halt. We had taken the best of the cars available A newish Roo 2007 Roo something a school teacher would drive. Well we were walking now. The car slowed next to Mikes' Camera and I got a needed battery. We talked to many people most of whom were apprehensive. Something about the repressive Rethugs who run Boulder or at least govern to school of sixty thousand. We march towards the Hill where the quad is. Surrounding the hill was a line of tape and couple of squads of ill equipped Boulder Cops. Lots of stoners riding their bikes and skate boards on the side walk pushing people waling around . I realize that the students don't care they want their cars and drugs and they don't want to offend the University. At the top of the hill there are some drummers and whole lot The shops had their shills out selling paraphernalia tees and there was weed in the air but so what? On Monday night I learned that group of two hundred fifty followers of changeorg penetrated the campus at Four twenty and dared to smoke the American weed in the Physics Quad, successfully. The administrators crowed like jack asses at their hollow victory. Cordley Coit Rocky Mountain Media CollectiveCordley Coit Home

Part 2
The road to Boulder turned rocky when the clutch fell out and the started grinding to a halt. We had taken the best of the cars available A newish Roo 2007 Roo something a school teacher would drive. Well we were walking now. The car slowed next to Mikes' Camera and I got a needed battery. We talked to many people most of whom were apprehensive. Something about the repressive Rethugs who run Boulder or at least govern to school of sixty thousand.  We march towards the Hill where the quad is.


Surrounding the hill was a line of tape and couple of squads of ill equipped Boulder Cops. Lots of stoners riding their bikes and skate boards on the side walk pushing people waling around  . I realize that the students don't care they want their cars and drugs and they don't want to offend the University. At the top of the hill there are some drummers and whole lot The shops had their shills out selling paraphernalia  tees and there was weed in the air but so what?
On Monday night I learned that group of two hundred fifty followers of changeorg penetrated the campus at Four twenty and dared to smoke the American weed in the Physics Quad, successfully. The administrators crowed like jack asses at their hollow victory. Cordley Coit Rocky Mountain Media Collective

Four Twenty a Bust in Boulder

Colorado is attempting to up date it's marijuana laws to legalize the stuff and bring honesty to the drug world a good thing to do but ion an election year where the Christian right thinks of themselves a majority not something welcomed by the Republicans who work for the people who own this planet. They hem and hawing Republicans for some reason what to throw the world back to nineteen fifty one when people drank themselves to death like decent Christian should. The young think they are having a huge revolution when all they are doing is softening the harsh reality . We are owned body and soul by the Chinese bankers. The Republicans loose a lot of money though legalization after all pot pays for a lot of banking dabt andthe whole war on drugs is a pyramid scam to enrich the bankers in Shanghai. The youth units in Colorado used to hold a 420 party in Boulder on the quad where thousands would gather un a fine April day and smoke pot and go home. They took themselves seriously and thought what they were do ing was a n earth shaking event. To those who think it might be looked on as getting high, but I am quibbling. The school authorities banned the practice of getting high as being unAmerican and not what university students should do. T he way the Regents came up with was to mobilize then thousand police ,pour fish fertilizer on the Quad and hhave thugs in suits attack the pot smoker on campus. Then as the final insult they raised the tuition. They then closed the University Campus to the public. This is a public university owned by the people of the state of Colorado.. In France when they outlawed men in women's dorms the revolt of 1968 started. All the posturing looked like there might well be student revolt or protest but these are pot smokers , 80% of the student population. They panicked at the idea that they would be fined a hundred dollars if they were caught smoking the evil weed. These are the the spoiled children of the rich  whose fathers and mothers control their presence in the school. The students did nothing except party off campus. They were afraid to school might discipline them. In Paris people died for attacking universities in Mexico if the university tried something like that there simply be a replacement of the regents but in Colorado the revolution was canceled by a bunch of Republican worms. The absolute right of free assembly to protest  was canceled by the pigs who steal the the student's money. A truly Matrix talking of the blue pill.