Menu
Fort Scott native takes part in Parks celebration
FORT SCOTT, Kan. -- Learning from Gordon Parks has helped Veretta Cobler down the road to success.
Cobler, a Fort Scott native who now lives in New York City, is a professional photographer who will exhibit a retrospective of her photographs, as well as talk about her career and friendship with Parks, at 9 a.m., Saturday, Oct. 10, in the theatre of the Danny and Willa Ellis Family Fine Arts Center at Fort Scott Community College, 2108 S. Horton St.
"It's a journey through my life ... and a span of work that goes across 30 years," Cobler said during a telephone interview Friday. "It's something that I've been wanting to do. The opportunity presented itself and it's an honor to be doing it."
Cobler's presentation is part of events scheduled to take place Oct. 7-10 during the Sixth Annual Gordon Parks Celebration of Culture and Diversity at FSCC. During the week of the celebration, 20 of Cobler's photographs will be on display in the meeting room of the fine arts center.
Cobler first met Parks in 1988 during the opening reception for the Kansas promotion in Bloomingdale's Department Store in New York, organized by the Kansas Department of Commerce and the Kansas Department of Agriculture. Cobler was there photographing the event.
Her ties to Fort Scott were the main reason she was able to meet with Parks, she said.
"He told me the reason I was able to see him is because I was from Fort Scott," Cobler said. "He was a celebrity at that point."
Cobler said she was also able to visit Parks in his New York apartment, which she called "quite impressive." She also had the opportunity to glean much photography advice from him.
"He showed me a lot of his work; it was pretty astounding," she said. "He was quite a mentor. He wanted me sort of under his shadow."
Parks' photography methods were simple, yet his work has been an inspiration to her and countless other people, Cobler said.
"He was always one for photographing things naturally," she said. "He always talked about how you didn't need fancy equipment. Just simple equipment and the eye to see it. He operated purely from his visions ... he was also so versatile ... there's no limitation as to what you can see."
Parks took photographs of many different subjects during his career. Cobler said she particularly enjoys fashion photos he snapped over the years.
"I always loved his fashion photos," she said. "He was always able to capture it magically."
Cobler has spent more than 30 years working in fine arts, fashion, portraiture and still life photography. Her work appears in such magazines as Bride, Modern Bride, Bridal Guide, Martha Stewart Living, Seventeen, Prom, and The New Yorker. Her publications include a coffee table book titled "New York Underground." She also maintains a Web site, www.veretta.com.
She graduated from Fort Scott High School in 1966 and Fort Scott Junior College in 1968. She received a bachelor's degree in photojournalism from the University of Kansas in 1974. Her parents are local resident Gracie Cobler and the late Kenneth Cobler.
"It's quite an opportunity (to come back to Fort Scott)," she said. "My family is still in Fort Scott so it's still kind of home to me."
Native American culture is a consistent theme in Cobler's work due to her deep interest and personal involvement in the Native American spiritual way of life. Her active participation in indigenous ceremony, research, and photographic field trips have yielded an extensive collection of Native American themes. Her grasp of current digital photographic technology, coupled with the artistic encouragement and guidance of masters such as Parks, makes this work possible, an FSCC statement said.
For more information about the Gordon Parks Celebration, call FSCC at (620) 223-2700, extension 515, or visit www.gordonparkscenter.org.