Auditing DECD

 A few days ago, an audit of the Connecticut Department of Economic and Community Development (DECD) was publically released. It's comedy gold.

I've been researching the Connecticut of the Arts (COA) and the DECD as the parent bureaucracy for years. The link brings up a handful of my observations that were largely ignored. The results of the recent audit are no surprise to anyone having read my previous research.

Most of the reporting of this so-called auditplay along with the premise that the State of Connecticut is not a failed political entity that no longer practices democracy in any meaningful way The New England Blue States have successfully virtually seceeded from all goodwill democratic co-operation with the rest of the United States.

Let's take a scapel to this audit and prove my assertions.

The Deep State Coverup

Finding #1 Speaks of a "Failure to Report" alleged DECD fraud on the part of DECD. DECD claims "In August 2023, DECD became aware that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was investigating fraudulent activity within the Small Business Boost program." and that  "DECD informed us that it did not report this matter in response to an undocumented verbal FBI request. It appears that DECD was not aware that it did not have a legal basis to disregard the mandatory reporting requirement of Section 4-33a of the General Statutes.".

Under the Agency Response, the auditors take the DECD baited argument that the issue at hand is not the fraud ($1M+) nor the lack of "documentation" that the FBI told them not to say a word about the investigation (under the Biden administration). It's not about criminal activity at all - it's about the reporting.

Here the audit doesn't bother to establish the fact that any such FBI investigation took place, what it found (and how that investigation squares with the audit's findings) nor does it attempt to document the "undocumented" request.

As a taxpayer whose money has been stolen, it seems to me that Either the FBI did request anonymity from State auditors (in violation of the CT statutes) or not, in which case DECD is lying. Regardless, this entire episode is a shitshow of incompetence by the DECD or the FBI or both.

This is just the first clue.

The Missing Project Manager

Under Finding #2, Inadequate Monitoring of a Grant Recipient, a wire theft of $300K is swept up under the rug as the auditors perfunctorily scold the DECD again.

In this case, the money for an unidentified State project was declared successfully exhauted by DECD even after "the DECD project manager overseeing the assistance left state service, the department did not designate a replacement. Furthermore, the grantee did not appear to complete the project by the end of the budget period."

What? The audit scolds DECD about "reporting" deficiencies and completely ignores the fact that a State project (maybe bridge construction, road safety improvements  lord-knows-what) may have been completed without supervisory governence to ensure safety and whatnot.

Doesn't anybody care about stuff like this?

"If DECD’s responsibility in this matter was merely to pass funds through to the grant recipient, it could have just disbursed the funds. It would not have been necessary for DECD to enter into assistance agreements stipulating the terms and conditions of the assistance, including required reports. DECD should take reasonable steps to ensure that the recipient properly used the funds, including obtaining reasonable assurance regarding the adequacy of the recipient’s internal control structures."

Can DECD be any more clueless?

Can the Governor Be More Clueless?

Finding 3, "Community Investment Fund Administrative Deficiencies" says, "Section 32-285a of the General Statutes requires the Community Investment Fund (CIF) board to submit to the Governor a list of their recommendations for eligible projects to be funded from bond proceeds. The list must include a description of the project, the municipality in which it is located, the amount of funds sought, any cost estimates, schematics or plans for the project, total estimated projects costs, and the applicable fiscal year for the disbursements."

That's how its supposed to work. A lucid, competent Governor must expect details about how State projects are administered, funded, and so on. DECD repeatedly failed to do so. The Governor didn't bother to care and neither did DECD.

It's only crony money.

The audit's final word salad; "DECD lacks documentation to support its assertion that it provided required information to the Office of the Governor through other means. If DECD had the information, it should have included it with the project applications as required by the program and policy guidelines. DECD’s stance that there is no requirement for it to sign the administrative and project monitoring plan is inconsistent with the fact that DECD signed the plan several months after disbursing funds for the project."

Oh, there's a kicker. DECD: "“We agree with this finding in part. While cost estimates, total estimated project costs, and the applicable fiscal year did not appear in the official recommendation write-up, DECD provides the Office of the Governor with all application materials (including cost estimates, total estimated project costs, and the applicable fiscal year) concurrently with the CIF Board. Further, the Governor's Chief of Staff and an advisor to the Governor are members of the CIF Board. DECD meets with the Office of the Governor prior to decisioning on all CIF funding rounds. ""

DECD Meets with this administration and NOBODY has any expectation that the reports are accurate, complete, or even required. Clowns are better organized.

Are These Audits Effective or Merely Performative?

There are dozens more such blind spots in open sight in this audit.

This latest DECD audit that repeats finding the same DECD deficiencies that older audits found begs the question of whether legal accountability any longer exists in Blue State America.

This audit like so many others that expose massive fraud, waste, and abuse of public funds. The findings and recommendations associated with the audit activity appear to have absolutely no effectiveness in restoring public trust (same shit year after year, nobody gets fired, DEI hiring ensures long term - maybe chronic incompetence) or recovering and returning taxpayer money.

The goal of these audits seem to be the audit report itself - fraud happens - so what? Next year another audit.

The phase "DECD did not" appears 36 times in this report.

The recommendation (DECD) "should appears 64 times".

DECD governs Office of Military Affairs. Ask Pete Hegseth if military projects "should" work or "must" work, just for giggles.

The COA's New DEI Lawfare Initiative

 The Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) has sent an email dated Julyy 22 2026 announcing a "Partnership Announcement". The body of the email announcement is as follows:

"COA x EANE

COA is thrilled to announce a partnership with the Employers Association of the NorthEast (EANE). Through this partnership COA constituents can access multiple types of Human Resources benefits which we hope will make your work easier.



Through COA's partnership with the Employers Association of the NorthEast (EANE), you now have access to valuable HR resources, including select HR training, discounted HR services, and unlimited support from certified HR professionals through EANE's HR Hotline service.

The Human Resource Hotline is free to COA users. All you have to do is to call 877.662.6444 and ask to be connected to the HR Hotline. Let the HR Hotline advisor know you're calling through the CT Office of the Arts and briefly describe your HR question or situation. There is much more information below, including a video that describes the process. We will be hosting a lunchtime webinar on Thursday September 10^th at noon so that you can learn more – mark your calendars for the upcoming registration announcement.

Who is EANE? 

The Employers Association of the NorthEast (EANE) is a member-based organization that has helped employers across New England navigate workplace and HR challenges for more than 100 years. Today, more than 1,000 organizations rely on EANE for HR support, training, consulting, and on-demand resources. EANE serves as an extension of its members' teams, providing trusted guidance and expertise to help organizations make informed decisions and build stronger workplaces."

I had never heard of EANE before and I sure as hell don't trust the COA any further than I can spit.

I looked up EANE to simply poke a bit at the integrity of the organization. First they are located in Agawam, Massachusetts which means that art funding intended for the benefit of CT artists was being (yet again) outsourced out-of State. And the bureaucratic function that is being moved out-of-State are Human Resource services regarding the employment or management of CT artists, administrators, and other art related personnel.

After even a cursory poke at reseaching what EANE provides aside from some perfunctory services, Gemini (Google's AI) returned this disturbing feature of doing business with EANE:

"3. Legal and Compliance Shielding

Amid shifting federal enforcement, EANE educates companies on how to navigate the legality of DEIB initiatives. For example, through legal educational pipelines like the RI SHRM Employment Law Summit, EANE addresses how employers can protect internal programs from anti-DEI scrutiny and evolving Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) standards. [1, 2]"

In other words, Taxpayer money (Federal and State) intended for the promotion of Art in CT are being used to fund a lawfare resistance to the policies of the current elected US administration.

Furthermore by using an Human Resources outsourced firm, The CT Office of Human Rights and Opportunities will have no juristiction to remediate legitimate discriminatory practices at the Connecticut Office of the Arts. This disenfranchises not only the CT Arts community from legal civil rights protections, it creates a money laundering scheme on the part partisan DEI advocates to insulate the State bureaucrats from legal accountability regarding Human Resources, Human Resource policy development, and due process for artists and others who are harmed by this illegal, taxpayer funded lawfare against the democratically elected government policies of this administration.

 

The CHRO Accepted My Complaint

 In February, I filed a Commision on Human Rights and Opportunities complaint based on research I conducted into the operation of the CT Commission of the Arts.

I jumped through a number of administrative hoops in the hope the complaint would be recognised despite not neatly fitting into traditional such complaints.

On June 26th I got word that the Commission was acting on the complaint:

CHRO Complaint Against the COA Filed Today

 

What Should the CT Office of the Arts Do For a Living?

 Based on the empirical evidence, the Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) is a government body who think that art administration is a branch of aesthetic malfeasance. The evidence that the Connecticut Collection is being systemically weakened at the expense of future generations as well as current CT artists of merit.

Add that to the fact that rural and suburban artist communities in the Second District are marginalized and fiscally ignored as if the wealthier and more CT State government situated counties needed priority.

So how do we fix it?

The first step in accountability is replacing the current staff with a more qualified field of administrators. You can't fix what's broken with the individuals who do the damage and don't have the intellectual capacity to actually do their jobs.

But aside from the ingrown, myopic current administrative staff needing to refresh their resumes, there are a number of things I've thought about that would systemically ensure a more equitable and fair administrative practice.

1. To ensure artists in the entire State are given opportunities to be represented in the 1% for Art program, each CT Call for Art will in round robin fashion, automatically enroll the art pieces that have won member show awards from that select set of diverse geographic State Art galleries assuming the winning artists qualifies as a State resident.
   
   This simple change will benefit CT artists on multiple fronts. First, it supports membership in local art galleries and performance venues meaning that those volunteer and otherwise funded organizations thrive through membership.
   
   Secondly, the art being considered for the State Art Collection in part has already been vetted for quality by Ct art galleries.
   
   Third, when an art piece is purchased from that Ct artist, the gallery gets its fair percentage of the purchase which fiscally supports the artist AND supports to organization.
   
   Each 1% set of purchases will feature the next cohort of geographically diverse gallery entries.
   
   
2. Artist qualifications must require proof of two previous years of having paid CT income tax instead of dubious residency addresses.
   
   
3. The COA must publish the actual dollar amounts of 1% totals and what percentage of that amount is actually spent on CT art purchases. Fiscal transparency.
   
   
4. Transparency of how the work will be judged.
   Spatial requirements
   Serial edition considerations
   Thematic considerations
   In scope/out of scope material considerations
   
   No more moving of goal posts.
   
   
5. Artists who are awarded purchase must not be considered again for two years.
   
   
6. The COA must publish a rich representation of how the works were evaluated, who and from where they were purchased, and the totals of works submitted, by who, from where.
   
   
7. The purchasing judges must first become familiarized with what the State Collection owns to ensure a complementary and ever enriching CT Collection.
   
   
8. I received a complaint from someone who volunteered at a small museum in CT and they applied for a grant to buy enough paint to maintain the building. They were greeted by papaerwork insisting on identity politics thresholds.
   
   The COA needs a fast lane application for basic funding needs. Full stop.

Undermining the CT Visual Art Collection 1% at a Time

Something that becomes suspiciously obvious in examining the shopping patterns used by the Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) is the recent volume of Giclee print and Digital Photography acquisitions the CT Arts Collection is accumulating.

In my original Complaint to the CT Human Rights and Opportunities Commission (CHRO), one of my concerns is the very fact that the COA simply ignores requests for more information about how much money and where that money is spent. These are public funds being spent on public art - transparency seems like a reasonable ask.

Most fine art galleries will not allow giclee prints into juried shows and with rare exception giclee and digital prints are considered risky investments as fine art (and there's a broad range of concern) but as casual decorative pieces they're acceptable. The question is (and its an important one), "Should the permanent collection of a State's taxpayer funded Visual Arts Collection be collecting inexplicably large volumes of these risky prints instead of buying the actual art pieces themselves?"

Furthermore, why are the most expensive acquisitions of art awarded to out of State artists instead of CT artists as written into law? This purchasing practice of buying inexpensive (and potentially worthless prints) by CT artists to create larger cash reserves for buying art-world-darling or aren't-we-ever-so-tasteful pieces surreptitiously is disturbing to say the least.

First, CT artists are getting short-changed in the small change 1% set aside AND getting misrepresented in the CT State Collection itself. Eastern CT artists are being erased as ever having existed thanks to the dysfunction of the COA to fairly ensure that all art that is submitted to State Call(s) for Art are given consideration. Everyone deserves better Arts administration than this.

Something that I hope to accomplish in my CHRO complaint resolution is that the CT Permanent Collection be inventoried by a tbd group of art lovers to be sure that whatever damage has been done is identified and safeguards are introduced going forward.

Secondly, whoever is judging the acquisition of new art needs to first have a reasonable sense of the scope of the existing Collection to reduce redundancy and ensure a rich, broad representation of CT artist's work and this means in no uncertain terms that 1% purchases of Art exhaust every potential, eligible CT artists before an out of State purchase is considered.

The acquisition of Giclee prints, digital photos, and temporally challenged art pieces needs to be rare and more compelling than nepotistic advocacy.

see: (ask an AI agent of your choice, "What are the various techniques that poorly managed State Arts organizations use to undermine the quality of State Visual Arts Collections?")

see: P0rn, G@mblin', and Cruel and Unusual Art Money Laundering Techniques

 

Normalizing Corrupt Arts Administration in Connecticut

 One of the tricks of obfuscating Federal and State Arts Money laundering is a sleight of hand accounting trick. The Connecticut Office of the Arts and the Department of Economic and Community Development Have, in practice, created an entitlement community category of arts funding It's uniquely insulated from accountability and its tightly coupled to and administrated by insiders and wannabe socialite engineers.

A recent example of this is the acquisition of three sculptures for the Naugatuck Valley campus. It's called Los Companeros by Beverly Precious and is located at the end of a walkway in the Poet's Circle at CT State, Naugatuck Valley Campus.

The COA email claims:

It's hard to imagine just how spending a fairly substantial sum of money purchasing a sculpture from an out-of-state artist whose business produced the pieces that were then shipped long distance to the Connecticut campus.

Was it the fact that this artist checked all the checkboxes required to qualify as a Woke-fully correct money sink?

• A woman -gasp-
• Her name sounds like a Casino/Native American Indian
• The sculpture is a thinly veiled advocacy of illegal immigration (nod/wink)

Nor is this the only Beverly Precious sculpture on that campus.

Clearly, equally capable and talented CT sculptors and creators never had an opportunity to allow their work to be considered for these State Sponsored (in other words CT taxpayer funded) acquisitions.

Furthermore, the COA who are responsible for acquiring Art *produced by* Ct artists FOR the Connecticut Collection used the money instead on the COA buyer's club preference of Democratic Party agenda messaging.

This is an abuse of public funds that should and must remain politically neutral for the expressed advocacy and enrichment of political party sponsorship

COA needs a personnel housecleaning sooner than later.

How Democratic Administrations Gut CT Arts - Part One

 There are a number of ways in which Connecticut artists are both short-changed in compensation as well as used as gullible pawns in bait and switch administrative policies that trivialize the purchase of CT-based artists and maximizes a buyers club slush fund for out-of-state vanity projects.

In researching data on the curious spending of the 1% For Arts funding, I had initially simply noted that artists from the Northeast corner of the State were completely erased from being selected multiple Calls For Art. More strikingly, it became obvious that the art being purchased to represent the highest quality of art in the State was concentrated in the wealthiest of communities.

Just to be clear, the 1% For Art legislation is fully intended to not only support the purchase of art from artists ALL OVER CT but it is also being purchased as a historical celebration of the best art by the best artists in CT for posterity. It's intended to be a virtuous cycle - encourage artists to create here by buying their best art so that they can enrich their communities, Pretty basic stuff.

So let's count the ways that multiple, invasive CT bureaucracies manage to F' that up.

Networking, Nepotism, and Entitlement

An easy, no-brainer administrative practice is obvious in the award of grants and art purchases. That is that the merit of spending money on art is on automatic pilot. Grants are awarded one after another within the same year through disingenuous multiple funding channels without artistic expectation, accountability, or even legitimate sniff testing for veracity. 

Even a casual proof reading of where the money is spent reveals well connected, wealthy community influencers being given taxpayer dollars based on the generosity of wealthy donors and not anything having to do with the merit of the art or the responsibility of these arts insiders to promote and support themselves. See this year's (or any year's CT Arts Endowment Funds distribution - see below).

But another strategy that is used is to obfuscate and reroute the 1% funds locally. Some civic arts projects are awarded to political family members and never given a Call For Art request. The money is swallowed by a politician's need to employ a family member as a make-work project - say, painting traffic boxes or whatnot. 

The entitlement examples involve granting arts money to obscenely endowed, private school organizations that amount to little more than student activity fund supplements. On any number of COA fiscal awards entries Yale, Wesleyan, Trinity, and other student cohorts will be given arts grants to fund student and school activities well outside the scope of government handouts. While this may appear to be an act of magnanimous generosity it reduces the already paltry sum of money available to more legitimate requests.

Corporations and Civic "Department of the Arts"

What?

How do small CT towns suddenly tap arts funds to supplement local funding?

And corporations? How does the COA reconcile awarding taxpayer money to corporations as if NGO's aren't an inefficient enough administrative money sink.

The State Sponsored, Non-Profit Laundry Business 

Fiscal Year 2026 CAEF Grants (CT Arts Endowment Fund) (Claude AI Analysis)

I'll map each town/city to its Connecticut county and sum up the grants. Now let me calculate the county totals and create a visualization. Here's the breakdown by county.

"Those observations are based strictly on the organizations listed in this PDF, which is only the list of FY26 Connecticut Arts Endowment grant recipients. It is not a comprehensive inventory of all arts institutions in Connecticut.

There could be many arts organizations in any given county that simply didn't apply, weren't eligible, or weren't awarded a grant this cycle. So statements like "Litchfield ranks 5th due to the Warner Theatre and Sharon Playhouse" really just mean those two grants were the largest contributors to Litchfield's total within this particular grant list — not that those are the only or most significant arts institutions in the county overall.

I should have been clearer that all analysis is scoped to this document only. Thanks for pushing back on that."

No matter what COA financial awards document you plug into the AI of your choosing and ask for a by-county analysis, the results are predictably the same. CT's Second District has been so demoralized and disenfranchised from applying, expecting, or ever receiving on a token basis any kind of arts funding that the effect has been normalized.

Pay To Play, Crushing Art In CT

The Connecticut Office of the Arts (COA) and it's sponsor the Department of Economic Community Development Have systemically turned the Arts in Connecticut into a zero sum game. They all need to resign and the entire cluster-muck (I'm being polite) of State arts administration needs to be reimagined with artists and the welfare of CT arts in mind.

As I described in an earlier post, what's left of the entire community of artists in Connecticut's Second District have been successfully demoralized and largely erased from any funding opportunities.

The Shapiro sorority house of arts administration has successfully broken the back of the former Northeastern Cultural District fell prey to what appears to be a COA fictional requirement that the district cough up at least $30K that would be matched in kind by COA with another $30K. You might be fooled into thinking this had something to do with art or community.

No such thing. Shapiro was requiring the money be used to hire yet another arts administrator who would cow-tow to the COA's desire to extend their administrative chokehold. Intelligent, frugal, all volunteer local organizations threatened the weed garden of schmoozers who today control all the spending in this State (and not in a good way).

By insisting that Cultural District's pay to play (under Shapiro's thumb), the message was clear - you don't exist. The Southeastern CT Cultural District fared only slightly better after stumbling for years. The entire Second Congressional District eventually got swept up into one aesthetic dustbin that is offered a scrap or two of attention just to be sure there's at least one idiot left who thinks anyone gives a sh!t.

The restoration and rehabilitation of CT's Second District arts community is a big job. DECD is not only a failed institution on automatic pilot but it has lost the script altogether. Accountability, reason, compassion, and a reimagination of the Arts is necessary.

The Arts community needs to get out of the aesthetic ICU and rise, Easter is coming.

P0rn, G@mblin', and Cruel and Unusual Art Money Laundering Techniques

 This is another chapter in the investigation of the CT Office of the Arts CHRO complaint I'm researching.

The expectation I had had was that when the State made a Call for Art and received, as a thought experiment, 80 pre-qualified entries - that those 80 pieces would be evaluated strictly on their artistic merit. and no one is ever warned that that's not true.

Secondly, just because the 1% that funds the purchase of the art comes from the construction or renovation involving architecture, the purchase of fine art is not an exercise in interior decoration, social reparations, or personal shopping excursions. The Call for Art *is* a call for *ART*. It's an artist's opportunity to exhibit their gift to their audience. But, as I've found, that's not true either. One Percent For Art is just a euphemism for misappropriating money into a slush fund that the taxpayer intends to be used for art but instead is diverted everywhere but.

In attempting to make my case why this happens I looked to find the original Call for Art involving the Elihu Burritt Library extension at Central CT State University (CCSU). The CT Office of the Arts is obfuscating any link to that information from their own site but it can be found here. Oddly, all of the links contained within it go to what looks to be a p0rn site. Handle with care.

One percent of an advertised 18.8 million dollar construction amounts to $188,000. The Call for Art states that the buying budget is $100,000. This same exact amount appears in other CfAs as if the COA pulled it out of its collective keister.

Very Sus.

In any case, as I compared and contrasted the buying habits of whoever the hell makes these decisions, I noticed that there was no random distribution of our sample 80 entries. Of the three 1% award groups, say 70 of the 80 ( purchased pieces skewed toward two or three CT counties as if the rest were thrown a token purchase (or not) to avoid suspicion.

Upon further investigation, I discovered that the entire Second District of CT has been, for all practical intents and purposes disenfranchised for both DECD and the COA Arts consideration. A few years ago, these entities contrived a regional Cultural Districts scheme that punished rural, lighter business district arts communities and rewarded already thriving (e.g. wealthier) Cultural Districts.

About four years ago, the Northeastern Cultural District was wholly eliminated and later incorporated into the dysfunctional Southeastern Cultural District. The Arts in the Second Congressional District have been largely co-opted by the Tribal Casino interests of tourism marketing and promotion and as an anti-gambling proxy. The euphemism is "healing" arts but it amounts to funding juvenile flower murals that are claimed to prevent gambling habits. IMO, they are more likely to induce su1cidal tendencies after a gambler has lost it all in the casino.

In any case, most taxpayers might expect that the State's Arts organizations were there to ensure that the entire State enjoyed to benefits and opportunities that the 1% for Art program pretends to offer. Instead it appears to be a finely tuned, State-sponsored money laundering operation that has no oversight or accountability and absolutely no interest in promoting CT artists (more on this to come).

CHRO Complaint Intake form Response

 

INTAKE QUESTIONNAIRE II

Inquirer Name and Address: Frank Krasicki <snip>

1. Respondent Name and Address:
   
   CT Office of the Arts

       

450 Columbus Boulevard, Ste 5
Hartford, CT 06103

PHONE : 860-500-2300

2. Does the Respondent offer its goods and services to the General Public? Is it a store, a bank, a Police Department, etc.? :
   
   They administer the 1% for [Public] Art program

3. How were you denied services and when? What was the Name and Title of the individual you spoke with? What were you seeking?:

   I received a notice of artists whose public arts submissions in early February of 2026.
   I attempted to corresponded with Tamara Dimitri, CT Office of the Arts at CT.gov.
   I was seeking an accounting of the “1%” that was spent on the art and who received it. She never replied.
   
   So I began to examine the program’s results.
   
   
   

4. Is the Respondent a school system or educational facility? If your complaint is against an educational facility or school, are you filing on behalf of your minor child (under 18 years of age)? If so, what is your child’s name, age and what grade were they in? Were you treated differently by the school in your role as a parent?:
   
   Not school related.
   
   
   

5. Was your child bullied? If so, when, for how long, and how often? Did you report the treatment to the Administration, to whom and when? Did the school investigate and what was the result?:
   
   N/A
   
   
   

6. Was your child denied a reasonable accommodation? What was the reasonable accommodation requested? Was anything offered in the alternative? What is the Name and Title of the Administrators you spoke with?:
   
   N/A
   
   
   
   

7. What is the reason for you claim of discrimination (race, sex, age, disability, national origin, religion, retaliation, pregnancy, color, ancestry, etc.)? Please identify on what basis you are being treated differently.:
   
   Regional residency. Zip Code economic class.
   
   
   

   Why do you think these actions were discriminatory?:
   
   The evidence of the discriminatory nature of how the 1% [Public Art] is administered is obvious (but I will provide those details in a summary).
   
   The nature of the discrimination is the money laundering of public arts funds that is funneled to wealthy or ingrown, privileged communities.
   
   State funds paid by *everyone* in the State in programs such as 1% for Art are intended to be used to acquire art works that represent the best of a broad spectrum of arts and crafts from ALL OVER the State regardless of an artist’s identity details or State based geographic location. A reasonable expectation for a qualifying artist who submits work for consideration is that that piece of work will be given an objective and incorruptible opportunity to be selected.
   
   My complaint is NOT that my work should have been selected, it is that my work (and the work of lots of other artists who are geographically challenged or not an insider) never had a fair opportunity to be selected. Furthermore I question whether or not the process even involved individuals who had the mental capacity to judge the art. And finally, I question the integrity of the program and whether or not the Connecticut Art Collection itself is being culturally compromised by swindlers.
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

8. Describe if anyone else was in the same or similar situation and how they were treated. Provide the race, sex, age, national origin, religion, disability of these individuals, if known, and if it relates to your claim of discrimination.
   
   Yes, a multitude of artists who submitted work to these calls for public art who don’t live along the shoreline or Western CT [NY getaway] suburban communities are affected.

 

1. Of the persons who were in the same or similar situation as you, who was treated better than you?
   
   Any honest evaluation of the art selected cannot statistically explain the extraordinary clustering of geographic co-incidence. At face value, all the art should have been given a blind consideration based on the art alone. I can’t prove it wasn’t but the results give a miraculously astonishing proof.

2. Of the persons who were in the same or similar situation as you, who was treated worse than you?
   
   We were all discriminated against either as a by-product of money laundering or as a consequence of the dysfunctional administration and lack of accountability of the 1% for Art program.

 

9. If you are claiming discrimination because of disability – Did you ask respondent employees for any changes or assistance to use their facility or services?
    

1. When did you ask?

2. Did you ask verbally or in writing?

3. Who did you ask?

4. Describe what you asked for.

5. Describe how the individual responded to your request.
   
   N/A

 

10. Did you file an internal complaint of discrimination with the Respondent? If so, was it investigated and by whom? What were the results of the investigation?
    
    Arts funding in CT is a tangle of incomprehensible bureaucracy. I have never been able to penetrate this administrative pile of worthless bureaucrats to ever get an answer to anything. I refer you to my blog; artscrub.blogspot.com where I document my efforts to do so over many years.
    
    I have had success in the past with CHRO in resolving similar issues and I trust this process far more than the wolves guarding the hen house art collection.
    
    I am currently compiling a body of material that I believe will prove the assertions I’m claiming.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Reference: https://artscrub.blogspot.com/2026/03/chro-ct-office-of-arts-complaint.html

FY2026 CT Art Grants Mystery Money Revisited

 

I started researching CT Office of the Arts administration of Art grants and awards. I began by looking at FY26 Art Grant Recipients that can be found at: https://portal.ct.gov/decdartsportal/-/media/decd/arts_culture/supporting-arts/fy26-sap-grants.pdf?rev=d28740ff103e457d962eb18b9080adf0&hash=29193B075BDA2056D73E9B7D58F83AC0

The heading claims that $950,000 has been awarded to 233 recipients.

I decided to categorize how much each of the eight counties in CT received to see if there was a pattern. In doing so, based strictly on the information documented on the spreadsheet,

In my first back of a napkin attempt at accounting for where the money went I came up with a shortfall that I couldn't resolve and I think it was the result of attempting to resolve all the entries into their correct State county buckets with too little sleep.

Lately, I've gone back to the original spreadsheet and asked a number of AI agents to do that work for me.

Google Gemini proved to resist doing the actual math and analysis and essentially gave up any deep probing of the subject. I tried a second AI that had problems with the PDF formatting.

Finally DeepSeek provided a rich and thorough, step by step breakdown of the questions asked.

Here is the County by County results:

Based solely on the provided spreadsheet, the sum of grant awards by Connecticut county is as follows:

"- **Fairfield County**: $338,545  

- **New Haven County**: $183,613  

- **Hartford County**: $201,066  

- **Litchfield County**: $65,253  

- **Middlesex County**: $56,151  

- **New London County**: $75,668  

- **Tolland County**: $16,914  

- **Windham County**: $12,797  

*Note: The total of these county sums is $950,007, which is $7 more than the $950,000 total stated in the PDF. This discrepancy arises from the data as transcribed; the figures above reflect the exact sums from each individual grant entry.*"

The percentage totals are"

"Based solely on the grant award amounts listed in the spreadsheet (which sum to **$950,007** – $7 above the PDF’s stated total of $950,000), the percentage of funds allocated to each Connecticut county is:

| County | Total Grants | Percentage |

|--------|--------------|-------------|

| Fairfield | $338,545 | 35.6% |

| New Haven | $183,613 | 19.3% |

| Hartford | $201,066 | 21.2% |

| Litchfield | $65,253 | 6.9% |

| Middlesex | $56,151 | 5.9% |

| New London | $75,668 | 8.0% |

| Tolland | $16,914 | 1.8% |

| Windham | $12,797 | 1.3% |

*Percentages are rounded to one decimal place and sum to 100.0% due to rounding.*"

These percentages consistently indicate that taxpayer money that is and must be dedicated to promoting ART and ARTISTS STATEWIDE is being systemically funneled away from lower income,  rural counties and regions into wealthier Western communities and the State Capital region.

Funding for the Arts is not a poverty program, It is not an education program. It is not a make-work program. It is not a health program. It is not a reparations program. It is not a feel good program. It is not a gambling honeypot lure. It is not an elite, obscenely endowed exclusive school student slush fund.

WHAT DOES THE Connecticut Office of the Arts DO FOR A

 LIVING? HOW DO THESE MOFOs KEEP THEIR JOBS?

Why are Eastern CT taxpayers subsidizing wealthy counties who can well afford to pay for their own programs while counties whose cultural needs are many are ignored. If artists are looking for an erased and marginalized group to whine about look no further than Tolland and Windham counties.

see: https://artscrub.blogspot.com/2026/03/chro-ct-office-of-arts-complaint.html

CHRO CT Office of the Arts Complaint

 

Today (Feb 16, 2026)  I submitted the following complaint to CHRO;

"Upon researching the administration of Public Arts funded by the CT 1% for Art program, I found evidence of severe mismanagement of equal opportunity to fair opportunity to be chosen to represent CT art. The protected class involves wealthy or ingrown regions vs less wealthy communities. It is also an issue of urban vs suburban and rural communities.

Three recent Public Arts selections; the Litchfield Courthouse, The SCSU Business school,, and the Elihu Burritt Library expansion provide the cold hard evidence.

In all three cases, CT Arts was used to purchase art from very specific areas; Fairfield county (New Haven) and Western CT (wealthy Litchfield towns).

All CT artists pay CT taxes. I'm 74 years old, grew up in New Britain and I'm very familiar with the many artists in and around New Britain, West Hartford, Hartford, and so on. I am also familiar with North Eastern CT; Putnam, Woodstock, Willimantic, Storrs, and so on. With the exception of one art teacher in Manchester CT, not one artist from Central or Eastern CT had a piece purchased through the 1% for Art program.

There are numerous issues in play.

The "calls for art" are fairly ambiguous and may cap the number of candidate entries. But the selecting process may move the goalposts (see the Elihu Burritt selection process).

There is also no transparency as to how much 1% is nor where that money is actually spent (it should be going to buying art from artists). It's not an administrative slush fund.

The art juror needs to be culturally qualified. CT is investing heavily in Giclee prints - art's most dubious medium that is usually not accepted at local art shows - expensive prints. At Elihu Burritt a piece claiming an Exit 29 in New Britain was chosen. There is no such exit in New Britain. Another piece called Neptune Bay was selected based on "physics" criteria. Neptune Bay is not on the planet Neptune, it's in Florida. Many of the selected works have nothing to do with art or even CT - this program is shamefully in need of an audit and reform.

Some artists selected have many more works purchased than could have been entered for evaluation (ok, good for them but shockingly indifferent to encouraging a broader representation of CT artists.

This complaint is a class and regional complaint. The CHRO needs to step in and ensure more regional, intellectual, and artistic integrity to an unaccountable, runaway State program."

This is scheduled for intake in late April.

Ruminations on Art Exhibit Viewer's Primer

 

Ruminations on Art

[An inquiry into the philosophy of Fine Art
and where it all comes from- 2026]

This exhibition illustrates the development of a visual philosophy unique to the existing practice and belief system commonly taught, exercised , and advocated as artistic gospel by the contemporary artistic status quo.

While this is a co-incidental and largely oblivious contextual reality, anyone can enjoy the show regardless. For those who enjoy the intent, detail, contextual basis, and co-incidentals of what the art is, the following supplement is intended to provide clarity and a teaser of more complex understanding through curiosity for more.

A primer on what the words mean or refer to:

Art Categories and sub categories:

Contemporary Art – refers to mainstream art and ideas that are given commercial and institutional credibility usually conferred to living artists

Modern Art – refers to a historical span of art production that started in the late 1800’s
and, in some art historian and critics opinion, continues in one form or another, to this very day

MetaModern Art – Contemporary Art that is created with the intent of answering a historical question or proposition that has been previously answered. MetaModern art is not an act of appropriation but an act of re-imagining a unique solution to the problem that can re-purpose familiar styles, techniques, or artifacts in fair use fashion (you don’t have to reinvent the studio practice or obvious intellectual artifacts).

Modern Day Art – refers to Contemporary Art that is neither political nor subliminally advocating political or identity politics as a defining characteristic of the work

PostModern (PoMo) [Visual] Art – refers to a historical span of art production that arguably started by the mid-1950’s and continues to today. It is most recognizable (but not exclusively defined) by the appropriation of numerous historically recognizable art and design styles that maintain their distinctive ancestry and are uniquely fused into pastiche compositions.

Propositional Zenthetics – candidate art that requires the viewer to alter their expectations of the question, “What is art?”. The first and foremost expectation of mainstream art is that what you see is the criteria by which you decide to evaluate it’s worth. Instead, Zenthetics insists that its art practice gives preference to the question, “What do all my senses and intellect have to contribute to may understanding of this work not withstanding my appreciation of how it ‘looks’?”

Fair warning.

“The map is not the territory”

- Alfred Korzybski

“The label is not the thing”

- Gregory Bateson

How to read my art labels:

TypeOfArt.Medium.CategoryOfFineArt Title of the artwork

TypeOfArt – any one of the set of labels referring to the conceptual bucket of recognized art objects. This generically includes ‘Painting’, ‘Sculpture’, ‘Assemblage’, ‘Collage’, and
so on

Medium – usually refers to the material used to create the work or the material upon which the work is created. For example, ‘Oil’, ‘Acrylic’, ‘MixedMedia’, and so on.

Category – Many of the categories involving my art are recent forks of MetaModern research projects. The artwork is often a prototype example of what is possible when an artist richly experiments with modifying the range of possibilities available in answering historically important artistic questions.
For example, “what is printmaking?”, “what is artistic photography”, and “is the homonyn of ‘language’ as used in art and actually useful form of communication?” are experiments explored in this exhibition.

Title – I do not tell the viewer what to see. On occasion, I document the origin of what was seen.
I can consider the title to be another characteristic of the artistic whole. These usually take the form of an assemblage in which the lablel (a poem or microFiction story) is bundled with the physical object to create the aggregate piece.

On other occasions, the title is a psychological nudge or hint to look harder.

The Main Hall (left to Right):

The Coffee Space:

Painting.Acrylic.DisassociativeImpressionism Snapshot of the Void on Any Given Evening

An experiment in Impressionism that uses additive, acrylic skin artifacts to the painting surface. Anyone who has read Jack Kerouac knows all about the void.

The Middle Hall Space:

Painting.Acrylic.ImprovisationalAbEx Gate of Eternal Return

An experiment in forking the Abstract Expressionist trajectory from action painting to improvisational impulse. Blame Miles Davis.

Painting.Acrylic.PostPostPainterlyImprovisation #16

A further exploration of the problem set originally explored by the “PostPainterly” cohort of New York and Washington painters working with stained canvases and vacant titles.

Painting.Acrylic.AbExWithoutACause CoddieWomple 1

Sorry/Not Sorry. Extending AbEx practice with an emphasis on a linear intervention of color
field ground.

The Far Hall Space:

P.A.Biomorphic,GesturalAbstraction.Surrealism Neither Here Nor There

A compound reimagination of what Surrealism might look like through the eyes of a German Expressionist fanboy.

Painting.Acrylic.PropositionalZenthetics Pavlov’s Aesthetics

Zenthetics is a minimalization of Aesthetic [beauty-based] art appreciation. But those dogs
keep barking.

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism Test Bed

An application of the Greek optical illusion of entasis to a back-to-basics color field-ish tease.

Painting.Acrylic. PropositionalZenthetics Usurping Humanity

Another deconstruction and reconstruction of the ruins of Contemporary Art practice.

Painting.Acrylic. PropositionalZenthetics Psychic Arms Race

Subconscious, unintentionally coded paint on canvas. Somebody must recognise it.

The Gym Hall Space:

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism The Mask Reveals What Is Inside

More entasis. Nobody is fooled.

Painting.Acrylic.Cosmograph Head Magic

A speculative cosmograph of our seemingly eternal human predicament.

Painting.Acrylic.xSurrealism Late Night Visitors

A raw, examination of a surrealist dream state through the eyes of one haunted.

Painting.Acrylic.PrimordialAbEx Memories Leave Memories Behind

Do butterflies have the memory of the caterpillar? An a priori action without motion.

Painting.Acrylic.ReadyMyth Face of Dionysus

ReadyMyths are physical artifacts that reference common myths (in this case the season of spring).
Readymyths are intellectual kissing cousins to ReadyMades.

Painting.Acrylic.AntiAbstraction Thirteen Paintings That Can’t Stop Tears

Abstraction obstructed by abstraction and grief.

The Entry Showcase:

Top Shelf:

Painting.Acrylic.Zenthetics The Four Seasons

Painting.Acrylic.Landscapes Nebraska and others

Memory exercises.

Middle Shelf:

Assemblage NeckTie

Print.Acrylic.SnapPrint 1 - 4

“What is a print?” In this case, the impression of an inked mousetrap.

Physical Photography.HandCut Visions of Buddha #1

“What is a print?” In this case, the impression of an inked mousetrap.

Manuport.CorrespondenceArt Minor Chaos in the Customs System

A manuport sent to be exhibited in the first International Festival of Manuports at the Kohta Gallery in Helsinki, Finland. Sent during Covid, Finnish customs and a new EU law “caused chaos” and this, one of many, entries were returned to sender.

The manuport entry is a component of the Ashford stone sculpture field on Zaicek Rd.

Lower Shelf:

Drawings.TheaterGoers.HandToGod various

TheaterWorks in Hartford staged a play, Hand to God, that was based on puppetry. As was my wont I drew audience members before and during intermissions of all shows. In this case, I exaggerated the images to imitate puppet likeneses.

Sculpture.Improvisational Cosmic Crapshoot #1

Painting.Acrylic.VisualLeetspeak 1-4

The Exit Showcase:

Top Rail:

Sculpture.Knotted 1 - 4

Left Wall, top to bottom:

Assemblage.MixedMedia.Antiscape Train of Thought

Painting.Acrylic.Cosmograph Betelguese Farewell

Painting.Acrylic.SpectacularMinimalism POMO Like We Did Last Summer

Right Wall, top to bottom:

SerialCompoundMonotypes Running Man series

Painting.Acrylic.Zenthetic Running Man

Lower Shelf:

Painting.Acrylic.4DAbEx Abstract Ambivalence

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.DiscontiguousDoubleTake Lake/Ice #2

All of my Physical Photography entries were created long before Banksy’s use of a shredding device.

PhysicalDrawing.Pastel.4DAbEx Representational Ambivalence #1

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.DiscontiguousDoubleTake Lake/Ice #1

PhysicalPhotography.Pixel.Minimal.DoublePresentation Dunham Lake

PhysicalPainting.Acrylic.ReadyMyth Dancing Fool

A few words about the exhibit:

A few innovative and somewhat experimental exhibition design decisions were involved in setting
up this show.

None of the works are titled nearby the work. Anyone interested in the titles and explanations can refer to this Primer on the exhibit contents. This is intentional.

This eliminates the possibility that a title may pre-seed an idea about what is being presented. The viewer can freely make their own assessments. It also eliminates the need for distracting signage.


The second exhibition innovation involves the tight coupling of my process notes and sketches and reading material to the artwork. This too is intentional and it has MetaModern roots in literature.

In Infinite Jest, David Foster Wallace, uses rich, autonomously narrative footnotes as complementary vignettes to the main narrative. Likewise, my contextual material is intended to test the possibility that viewers can spend more than 5 seconds grazing at art and will instead leave smarter for the deeper investment of time.