By Malinda Miller (Engl, Jour'92; MJour'98)

High up on scaffolding, students meticulously paint bright floral patterns on the west side of the Boulder Dushanbe Teahouse.   

They’ve been learning the traditional art of ornamental painting—nakkoshi—from Maruf Mirakhmatov, who is visiting Boulder from Khujand, Tajikistan, for six months.  

“I really want to get into art restoration or just restoration overall, especially with bigger buildings,” said Kaija Galins, a junior architecture major. “My favorite part has been to watch each step of the way, like the sanding, laying down the charcoal and the tracing process.” 

Galins is one of 17 students who over the summer took a course on restoration of the Dushanbe Teahouse with Azza Kamal, an associate teaching professor in the Program in Environmental Design and a former historic preservation commissioner.

Students studied cultural heritage and preservation, practiced painting techniques in the classroom, and applied those skills to onsite restoration under Mirakhmatov’s guidance.

Kamal said the students also learned about the urgency to account for embodied carbon in new construction and restoration, as well as the value of refurbishing and recycling materials so they don’t end up in the landfill.  A gift from Boulder’s sister city in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, the teahouse’s intricate carvings, painted woodwork and ceramic panels were created by more than 40 artisans, including Mirakhmatov’s grandfather. 

“It’s important work, because there are only a couple people in Tajikistan still doing this,” said Mirakhmatov, a fifth-generation artisan. “For me, it’s easy because it’s in my blood, and every day when I’m painting here, I’m enjoying it.”

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By Joe Arney
Photos by RJ Sangosti

Photographer RJ Sangosti carved out a niche in environmental journalism because crime stories had a way of following him home when he was working general assignment for The Denver Post.

 “I want to stop people, make them think, and elevate how we are conserving water and planning our growth in the West.
—RJ Sangosti

He’s still doing great work—but it’s still following him home.

Sangosti has been at the Post and through other channels, including a Scripps Environmental Journalism Fellowship at CU Boulder. He also has received grants from CMCI’s to travel and hire artists to showcase his work on the river.

That support emboldened him to approach the story of a local river as a national crisis—a key goal of the Water Desk, which is dedicated to improving journalism connected to the Colorado River, especially around changes driven by climate, population and politics.

“The fellowship made me aware that journalism is not just the one big story—it’s about helping people understand and tell stories about the river,” he said.

A Gunnison native who grew up fishing and playing in the Taylor River, Sangosti hopes his work creates a visual story of the river that inspires others, including widespread sharing of his photos through the Post and, one day, a comprehensive website with photos, charts, maps—even drawings from Indigenous people who live nearby.

“I want to stop people, make them think, and elevate how we are conserving water and planning our growth in the West,” he said. 

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Photojournalist Ross Taylor spent six months documenting a group of refugees as they camped, climbed and splashed through waterfalls. The group, based in Aurora, is one of only three all-female venturing crews in the state, and one of the first in the country to welcome refugees. 

Taylor, an assistant professor in CMCI’s Department of Journalism, traveled as far as the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve to report on the troop. He captured their adventures in a photo series and story published in The Denver Post in June. For many of them, this was their first time camping.

“There were nights when we camped in subzero temperatures,” he says. “I was really impressed with their courage and their strength.”

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Artist Steven Frost finds hands-on ways to teach students about design principals. In his undergraduate course, Designing Alternative Media Platforms, the Media Studies insructor assigned students to create new flags for the city of Boulder, Colorado. The flags needed to be simple, yet memorable and immediately recognizable. Below are several examples of the flags, designed primarily in Illustrator, with explanations from the students who created them. 

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