| 30th Annual COTA Festival Poster Competition Winner Announced |
 The Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts (C.O.T.A) is delighted to announce that it has selected the photograph of local photographer, David Coulter, as the winner of its 2007 poster competition. The dates for this year’s annual jazz and arts festival are September 6th through 9th, 2007.Coulter, a Pocono native, began his career in photography in his high school photography class, which was taught by Bill Weitzman at Stroudsburg High School, and then shot for the school newspaper, The Mountaineer. He then studied photography with a focus on photojournalism/documentary photography at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh. While there, he began his photojournalism career with assignments covering neighborhood boxing gyms for a couple of Pittsburgh area magazines. In 1980, he moved to New York City, where he worked as a freelance assistant for commercial and fine arts photographers, including Duane Michals and Eva Rubinstein. He also worked for a few small weekly newspapers, such as The East Sider, West Sider, and Riverdale Press. In 1982, he joined the Pocono Record as its sole staff photographer, and eventually became Photo Chief, overseeing the staff and workings of the Photography Department. He began freelancing for personal and corporate events in 1984. In 1998, he left the Pocono Record to focus on freelance photography from his home studio in Henryville, where he resides with his wife, Michelle, and their two children, Harry and Aubrey. In 1982, Coulter began photographing the C.O.T.A festival, informally, and then was officially requested to do so some years later by fellow photographer Walter Bredel. In 2001, he was the recipient of C.O.T.A.’s Sterling Strauser Award. The Sterling Strauser Award was created in 1989 to honor artistic contributions in the visual arts. Sterling Strauser (the award’s first recipient) and his wife, Dorothy Strauser have long been acknowledged for their generosity towards young and emerging artists. The award honors each recipient who has demonstrated excellence in the arts and has shared his or her insights and inspiration by always encouraging creativity. As a fine art photographer, Coulter has been exhibiting black and white prints for more than fifteen years, and has personal collections throughout the United States and Europe. The poster competition is held annually and is open to all visual artists. The poster is widely displayed throughout the Tri-State area, and the image is used on the official C.O.T.A. tee shirt. The 30thth Annual Celebration of the Arts will feature the music of Nancy and Spencer Reed; John Coates, Jr.; Phil Woods Quintet; Bob Dorough and the Bobettes; Urbie and Kathy Green with the Jesse Green Trio; Eric Doney Project; Asparagus Sunshine; and the big band sounds of the COTA Cats, and the Jazz Artist Reperatory Orchestra (J.A.R.O.), just to name a few. For additional information about the festival, please call C.O.T.A. at (570) 424-2210, or visit us on our website at www.cotajazz.org. The Delaware Water Gap Celebration of the Arts is presented in cooperation with the Borough of Delaware Water Gap, the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, and the National Park Service. Contact: Cyndie A. Dutkiewicz, Publicity Director/Board of Directors - Telephone: 570.460.0713 |
