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.