Grants from CARES Act money going to drag queen classes, virtual gender-bend performances in Juneau

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Juneau Municipal government has released its list of CARES Act grants that it has awarded to artists, and it includes funding for online drag shows and drag queen classes. The total going to artists in Juneau is about $300,000.

Indeed, one of the grants has gone to the drag queen husband-partner of the City’s own finance director, Jeff Rogers. Gigi Monroe’s real name is James Hoagland, but the award evidently goes to his stage name. Details on the grants follow:

Drag Classes, a series of 4 virtual workshops, will be instructed by Monroe, pictured above from his Facebook page, for an award of $1,400.

“Drag Live”, two virtual shows produced, directed, hosted, and performed by Monroe, with performances by Shirley Wood, Lamia Lexicon, Lituya Hart Monroe, Dear Evan Handsome, Hoe-Say Queervo, Luna, Tyquan, Miss Guise, #Bob, Diamond de la Ghetto, Luke the Duke of Bell, Ryder Strong, Stevie Smalls, Roman Wilde, Blake Slate, for $9,965.

Other art projects funded by CARES Act money include:

Animation for the Juneau Commission on Sustainability by Sarah Asper Smith and Pat Race for $12,075.

Two paintings by Constance Baltuck for $5,000.

Digital illustrations, by Christine Carpenter, $8,780.

Regalia Basket by Della Cheney for $7,500.

“DZOOM – Lingít Language Learning and Revitalization in the time of COVID and beyond,” paintings by Barbara Craver, for $6,225.

Paintings by Crystal Cudworth for $2,665.

A coloring book for adults, by Kelsey Erickson-Kizer, for $5,000.

Sustainability promotional project, coordinated by Anjuli Grantham, Brian Wallace and Christine Carpenter, $12,075.

Online Live Music for Gallery Walk by Erin and Andrew Heist, $800.

Weaving: “Ancestral Indigenous Protectors”, woven by Lily Hope, for $13,814.

“Persevering through Covid”, Live Event, directed by Leslie Ishii, engaging 10 local storytellers and five theater technicians, for $10,134.

“Hidden Art/Hidden Messages” created by Rachael “Rachet Constructs” Juzeler, for $16,000.

Online Water Color Classes, by Hollis Kitchin for $4,300.

“Art and Safety Masks,” by Christine “Tide Watcher” Kleinhenz, and manufactured at Capital Copy, for $10,589.

Wooden Paddle, by David “Lou” Logan, for $800.

“Meditations” and “Views from a Distance”, a series of paintings by MK MacNaughton, for $11,260.

“One Square Mile” documentation of Covid-19 developed by Louise Manewall, with Larry West and Abel Ryan, for $10,550.

“Covid, Chaos, and String Theory”, a series of four paintings by Pua Maunu, $2,600.

Mental Wellness Zoom Painting classes, Find Your Fire Art Studio (Melissa McCormick), for $1,850.

Covid Quilt created by Mary McEwen, for $2,800.

Children’s coloring book by Mary McEwen, for $4,756.

Covid portrait painted by Louise Miller, for $1,920.

A 20-foot canoe, created by Robert Mills, with Brian Crapo, for $37,250.

Photographic portraits of Covid healthcare workers by Marc Mintz, for $3,900.

“Stories of Elders during Covid”, by Planet Alaska (Vivian Mork) working with four elders, for $10,000.

“Solace” modern dance, choreographed and danced by Anouk Otsea, music composed by Robert Newman, and videography and editing by Ryan Cortez, for $14,000.

“Virtual Strings and Stories,” by Linda Rosenthal, for $8,625.

“Recognizable Changes,” bentwood box by Abel Ryan, for $3,500.

“Animal Silhouettes” with messages of encouragement created by Aakatchaq Schaeffer, for $6,490.

“A Firefighter’s Holiday Tradition lives on”, a documentary film by Alaska In Motion (Madison Beau Sylte) with Kristan “Kris Kross Creatives” Barrill, for $3,900.

Covid Mask Scraps Quilt by Deborah Tempel, for $6,000.

“Gu Nu Ku” contemporary dance film choreographed and danced by Marissa Truitt, with Sydney Truitt and Austin Edwards, for $4,750.

“From Juneau With Love” a virtual two-hour performance produced by Taylor Vidic and Kelsey Riker with Annie Bartholemew, Cameron Brocket, Serena Drazkowski, Brita Fagerstrom, Michaela Goade, Jennifer Gross, Ryan Hicks, George Kuhar, Erika Lee, Taylour Marie, Tahir McInnis, Joseline Miles, Mercedes Munoz, Rochelle Smallwood, Chris Talley, Salissa Thole, Erika Tripp, Stewart Wood, Queens (Wendy Byrnes, Marian Call, Elizabeth Ekins, Allison Holtkamp, Rasha McChesney, Kristina Paulick, Cate Ross, Jessica Skiba), with videography and photography by Sydney Akagi, and with a graphic artist, and a stage manager, for $17,450.

Painting by Liyuan Zhang, for $2,000.

All of the physical artworks will be displayed in the Juneau Arts and Humanities website and eventually will be placed around town in vacant storefronts, no later than Dec. 30.

The Juneau Arts and Humanities building is now being used as a shelter for homeless, and many businesses in downtown Juneau have closed, so their storefront windows are available.

The City and Borough of Juneau Assembly allocated $300,000 of its CARES Act money for artists, in a project managed by Juneau Arts and Humanities. Some of the projects are highlighted at the JAHC website.

111 COMMENTS

  1. Talk about a huge waste of money. Wondering when people will realize that these ‘acts’, only cause their own dollar to be of less value?

  2. Omigosh! I am so embrassed to know several names under the other art projects that I thought those people were good thinking people. I was wrong, or maybe not, they just changed or I had changed. This is not the time spending money on Art while Juneau businesses missed its tourism season.

  3. But of course! You can’t have a $37,250 canoe without an $800 paddle! I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. Maybe I could get a copy of the $5,000 adult coloring book and it will make me feel better.

    Can CARES act money really be spent this way?

  4. I’m sorry, but what in the actual hell is going on in my State?! You mean to tell me, that, while there are people in this state still losing everything they’ve worked for their entire lives (while government employees and school borough employees flourish financially – all over a false flag plandemic) that those sons of —- in Juneau are actually spending CARES Act funds on this filthy —?!

    I’m sending a letter to the federal government, President Donald J Trump and Gov. Dunleavy, along with Don Young, Dan Sullivan, and, for all the good it will do, Lisa Murkowski about this embezzlement! This is an obvious gross misappropriation of funds, if I ever heard of such!

    • The republican led federal and state of Alaska governments did this.

      Also all these are small business owners. Are you suggesting only corporation support in this incredibly financially fragile time? How much did Amazon make off the pandemic?

      • Maureen, most of the artists receiving these funds are not in fact small businesses, but artists. Is funding art (and drag shows) really a priority right now over helping REAL and legitimate small businesses?

        • If that is what repub majorities voted for in our federal and state levels-As that is basic law that had to happen twice before it got to the local level.

          If it is otherwise usual income-yes. And a whole bunch of artists, and a whole lot of others.

          Project Veritas got $500,000+. Should we be funding conspiricists who keep finding themselves in court on fraud and losing? C’mon.

          • And again your leftist views show where the problem lies. The left won’t be happy until this great state and union is brought down with these liberal ideas of government and wasting tax dollars on non essential businesses. You must be one of those getting cares act moneys for art while others loose their homes and cannot feed their family’s. These so called artist should go get real jobs.

  5. Who is the idiot who thinks spending $6,000 of emergency funds during a pandemic on a COVID mask quilt is a good idea? You thieving morons are as corrupt as hell.

    • With all the people & businesses hurting this is what they spend the money on? This is bulls..it.
      The people who make these decisions should be replaced permanently. Juneau as the Capitol is setting a very bad example to the rest of the state & country

  6. Let’s not fool ourselves folks. We knew it was only a matter of time before there perverse and demonic antics would be the “new norm”

    • That’s right. When the government opens the spigot, all forms of life crawl out from under the rocks to feast.

  7. Haha!!!!! If you made this list up, no one would believe it. Thousands for drag classes and adult coloring books.

  8. Hoe-Say Queervo is pretty original, not sure if even Jimmy Buffet could improve on that. That aside this looks like 300K wasted .
    Have you been to Juneau recently? The dump in Lemon Creek caused by the ever growing Mount Stinko is disgusting! The stench could ” knock a dog off a gut wagon”. I smelled it outside of the Airport upon arrival and even caught a whiff in Food land parking lot. The stench at Costco was beyond disgusting. Turns out rain water and garbage is a methane generation machine. Who knew?
    Not to worry though. Rorie Watt and company are helping fund the Arts..
    Come on Rorie, You can do better than this! All of this Art won’t cover the stench. Start the incinerator back up!

  9. Art is everywhere, colorful people, their style, movement and energy telling their character stories through art during difficult times. For many artist and patrons art makes life better..

    • Ambiguity does not make one’s writing seem deep, rather it obviates a lack of coherent meaning in his or her purported argument. A minimal structure for a written argument is at least one premise that guarantees the truth of a conclusion.

    • Indeed. People may not be able to work, eat, or keep a roof over their heads, but thank God we have Covid funds going to art so we can at least peer upon something nice. Maybe some will get lucky and have the artwork put on top of graves.

  10. No surprise here. Over the last 50 years, I’ve noticed Alaska being californicated more and more every year; especially Anchorage………

  11. Two comments: This will easily make the national news. It would have been silly to expect anything but this from the City and Borough of Juneau Assembly.

    • There are families out there that can’t make rent and have no food on the table and the government is handing money out like this. I agree that artists need help too but this is a little rediculous. Help everyone before focusing on individual groups, there are a lot of people falling through the cracks that have worked hard all their lives that need help. Open the economy.

        • The State and the Feds indeed have made funds available, but how they’re spent is up to local governments, whether they follow the laws or not.

        • But it was a Democratically-led municipality that disbursed these funds to these ‘artists’.

          By the way, Maureen (because I have seen your name in the comment section of the ADN), do you know that the ADN, in their arrogance, intolerance and cowardice, are banning ALL posters there merely for questioning or challenging the mandates on the wearing of masks by the public? I was thus banned this morning. What do you think of that, and what does such egregious censorship of differing opinions say about the integrity of those who run the ADN?

  12. In all seriousness……did anyone expect anything else from our gubmint?
    Almost everyone of these people are totally out of touch with reality, and what it takes to survive as a private sector citizen.
    They live in an insulated world where employment is 99% guaranteed, benefits are taken for granted, and their entire existence is predicated on “free” money.
    They have no concept of where all that money that they handing out, actually comes from.
    They have also lost all concept of what the necessities in life are. They probably actually believe that paying thousands$ for adult coloring books is one of life’s necessities.
    These people do not exist in the real world, but in some kind of childish fantasy land.
    They are parasites.

    • “did anyone expect anything else from our gubmint?”

      We have met the enemy; and he is us. This is a perfect example of the liberal quest to compel equality for every difference under the sun.

      • All men are created equal-it’s the basis of Amercan independance-our split from colony to Nation.

        Are you aware of our founding beliefs and documents? Seemslike you don’t.

    • Agree, especially in light of the fiscal crisis this state is facing. The party is over (to use a well-worn cliche’.)

  13. I am so done with this state I could scream! When money meant for actual help to businesses and families gets the shaft while some get money for classes to be Drag Queens?!? Certainly can tell what is going on in our government now for sure. I’m sorry but living here for 51 years of my life Alaska has never allowed this garbage. We have let too many California freaks in the back door to our government, with ridiculous short requirements for who is able to run. They live here two or five years and they can run for office. That is what needs to stop. I’m sorry but my personal opinion is if you have not lived in Alaska under 10 years, you don’t have that right. Ten and above maybe. This is what needs to change. It’s like we all have gone through some sort of time warp where they think they have more rights and abilities than the rest of us. At the same time shoving their liberal homosexuality agenda down our throats. Absolutely disgusting.
    Yet it’s being allowed…. Why??

  14. These people are Thieves and should be brought before a Federal Judge not local or state and charged with misuse of Government Funds.

  15. Art is life. These hateful comments and this trashy headline make me proud to be “gender bent” and all you trash talking homophobes can freeze.

    • Wait what? Don’t badmouth me because I prefer a woman. Having a man parade around dressed as a woman is not art, it’s a sign of mental deficiency. Obviously some wires are crossed in there somewhere. I’m not saying it’s their fault because most likely they were either born that way or Life experiences chose him to make a decision to live that way. Either way I’m proud of the way that I am . I’m not a freak.

    • I’m genuinely curious: would you rather see this money go to the arts or help the homeless with food and shelter?

      • To those who have never suffered for want of the basics, for those who have never labored in a physically demanding low paying job, money means nothing but some ethereal magic ‘poof’ out of thin air. These are the same who would power out economy with fairy dust and unicorn farts (beautiful artistic unicorn farts). You don’t really know work until you’ve worked on a crab boat or baled hay.

        • Preach it brother! I’ve worked for every dollar I have since I was 14, commercial salmon fishing, construction, carpentry. I’m still poor but I get by. Seeing so much money being thrown at useless stuff like pearls before swine pisses me off!

    • Yeah, it couldn’t be that lack of common sense in this decision will cause anyone to actually suffer, now, could it?

  16. Do the Juneau city leaders feel no responsibility at all in being the capital city and thereby representing Alaska? This is corrupt and disgusting behavior. Shocking. Please tell us you made this up!

  17. Until enough people vote it will not change. Maybe the businesses going under will remember where the dollars went and by whom.

  18. Anything that it dark, dysfunctional, anti-family, anti-society, and anti-normal is embraced and pushed by the cultural and intellectual nihilists on the left nowadays. They are quite simply a death cult, seeking the death of not just individuals but of society as a whole. If I were more religious, I would swear that they are positively demonic.

      • You can see all the posts denouncing these outlays. You’re in way over your head. These post should show you how wrong your thought process is.

  19. Does anyone actually think government money would make it to the citizens who really need it? Why would they want to remove any feeder fish from the shark tank,? I suppose giving hundreds of millions to Trump and Kushner businesses was a much better use of the money? Wake up my fellow Herring! The Oligarchy strikes again! How long will you cling to the idea Uncle Don is there to save us? Just another group of sharks from the other side of the reef!

  20. Juneau is the problem. What good ever comes from it? Why do we send those elected to represent our interests there?

  21. I don’t blame the “artists” for getting the grants near as much as I do CBJ for issuing them.

    With a growing homeless problem, many businesses hurt by the 1-2 punch of shutdowns and no tourism, that money could have been much better spent elsewhere.

    • Federal guidelines regarding equality for covid money distribution almost certainly require that such “artistic” grants be honored. The covid moneys aren’t about survival, but maintaining a semblance of normality in business. Efficiency and considerations of real need are irrelevant. This is what happens when the govmint shuts down commerce.

  22. Right up Zack Fields alley. Now, he won’t have to go far for his personal entertainment. He’s known as the “Juneau Cruiser.”

  23. From a business who had several items denied under AK Cares Grant funding, I’m sadden to read this list, especially when they said my request to replace a 2011 failing laptop for my publishing business was considered an unnecessary expense. CRAZY!

  24. They got one thing right, where to place the artwork. Juneau has lots of empty storefronts, no problems there. Another $1.5M in Juneau tax dollars was given to construct an arts center with the goal of being the art capital of SE Alaska. Nice, but I don’t know who will see it. We don’t have tourists anymore and most locals are afraid to go downtown.

  25. This is an outrage! This is completely out of control! We need to get together and stop this! We are Alaskans, we are known for being rugged frontiersmen, we all have guns, IT’S TIME TO STAND UP AND PUT A STOP TO THIS. Maybe we should meet up on parler and organize something. I’m on there @ApexAlaska if anyone wants to find me.

  26. Think about it this way: Artists have lost their livelihoods too. . . through sales of work during the typically busy summer seasons, through loss of work working for businesses that can no longer support them, through loss of their business and for other reasons, due to the time we are in. This is not ‘free’ money for artists, but a means for people to put food on the table, for help to pay the bills in many cases. Ultimately, it will benefit the city as a whole, because there will be a lasting collection of artwork that identifies this time we are in. There are many others who are beneficiaries of cares dollars, without an expectation of something in return. In this case, artists are returning something to the community that is theirs, that is the benefit of art in society. Art is a creative, uplifting and joyful thing, something we all need in this dark time.

  27. “All of the physical artworks will be displayed in the Juneau Arts and Humanities website and eventually will be placed around town in vacant storefronts, no later than Dec. 30.

    “The Juneau Arts and Humanities building is now being used as a shelter for homeless, and many businesses in downtown Juneau have closed, so their storefront windows are available.”

    It’s a good thing all these businesses have closed so these artists can get COVID funds to brighten them up. We wouldn’t want to keep businesses alive when we can have art to gaze upon!

  28. Good try. Leaving aside the necessity for food, “art” is in the eye of the beholder, just like pornography.

  29. I am embarrassed to be a Juneauite. CBJ & members of the assembly should be ashamed, I am in complete disgust.

    Let’s get over this; open business back up and let the fearful stay at home. I am done being told what to do. I wish to burn all of my masks.

  30. In your face transexuality, lesbianism, homosexuality, transformational reverse gender identity, etc…etc.
    This is all mental illness being played out in a quest for appropriated funds to further advance mental illness. Our society has reached a saturated toxicity. Unfortunately, much of this is promoted through government endorsement, because much of government has these types running it.

    • These weird, sexualized creatures are like zombies whose genitalia have become the sole focus of their perverted lives. By all other standards, they could be classified under a general psychological definition:
      Insane.

  31. The budget cuts need to gut these type of program and it is time for the big red pen to make a lasting impact on the public sector, the likes of which we have never seen. Stand tall and deliver a blow to these unions and non profit money grabbers.

  32. “…drag queen husband-partner of the City’s own finance director, Jeff Rogers. Gigi Monroe’s real name is James Hoagland…”
    “Drag-queen” is nothing more than homosexual under a politically acceptable label.
    Allowing them to give any sort of “lessons” to children should get them a place on the sex offender register, but it doesn’t.

  33. This garbage is nothing more than gay men wearing “womanface” to mock women. Nice that the so-called government is funding it. What’s next, a minstrel show and “Mammy”?

    Maybe it’s time to move the capitol out of Juneau.

  34. I’m not going to defend each of these grants, but each of the artist recipients of these grants is a business. The artist produces products that, before the pandemic, would be purchased and provide money for the artist to live on. Giving money to an artist is no different than giving money to a restauranteur to keep him in business or to a laid-off employee of a hotel that closed because nobody is traveling any more. The fact that you don’t appreciate the artist’s product does not mean it’s invalid. If this money was not distributed this way, the artists would be out of work and, perhaps, homeless. You think art is a silly, useless enterprise and someone who chooses to try to make a living doing art deserves to be destitute — they don’t do “real” work. I think you’re wrong and the Juneau Arts and Humanities Council thinks you’re wrong. It’s a matter for debate, but calling it bullshit is not debating. You also might just look at the colossal waste perpetrated by the current administration. Taxpayers have spent $100,780.70 per day so Donald Trump can travel to play golf at his own golf course.

    • “I’m not going to defend these grants” and then you drone on and on with your excuses. Typical liberal. But Hey! I have a sculpture I made out of bear shit I can sell you.

  35. Let’s see what happens when productive Juneau residents decide they’ve had enough and report facts and allegations to:
    .
    Treasury’s Fraud, Waste, and Abuse Hotline, [800-359-3898]; Brian D. Miller, Special Inspector General for Pandemic Recovery (SIGPR), United States Treasury, Office of Inspector General 1500 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W. Room 4436, Washington, DC 20220,
    .
    Senator Richard Shelby, chairman of the Senate Committee on Appropriations, Room S-128, The Capitol, Washington, D.C. 20510 [(202) 224-7257],
    .
    and Alaska’s Senator Dan Sullivan, 800 Glacier Ave, Suite 101, Juneau, AK 99801, [Phone: (907) 586-7277, Fax: (907) 586-7201].
    .
    Imagine what might happen if 100 residents signed this complaint and put copies in Juneau and Washington D.C. newspapers.
    .
    What have Juneau residents got to lose?

  36. What a waste of taxpayer money. Reading this actually makes me physically ill! Veto, Veto, Veto!

    Those funds were meant to, and should go to individuals and small businesses that are impacted by Covid. Period!

  37. Edit -Juneau Assembly- this is the final nail in the coffin.
    Juneau voters – get off your butt and vote in the next assembly meeting and get these rambling idiots out. They only ramble to hear their own voices… no value added to our communities here.

  38. I’m going out on a limb here. I am co chair of the task force in Juneau that has been making the recommendations to the assembly on how to allocate funding, We’ve been proud of the assembly acting on our $16 million to local business; $3..3 million for housing, rental, and utility assistance; $3 million to Juneau nonprofit businesses, $1million to hire unemployed people to work on trail projects, etc. our task force is made up larelgy of local business people who have been devastated financially by the pandemic. We heard that we were missing a need- artist who otherwise were missed by other CARES assistance. We allocated $300,000 for this purpose-to be awarded to artists who demonstrated financial need resulting from covid, to produce works and get paid for their effort. The awards were made by a panel selected by a local Juneau arts nonprofit. Whether you, me, or Suzanne Dowling agree with the art choices, the money was used to assist people impacted financially by the pandemic. And the amout was a small fraction of the total funding used by Juneau.

  39. Suzanne,
    Let me just start with saying, you suck. This is irresponsible reporting and a clear attack on the LGBTQ community. Out of all the allocation of funds to arts you pick one of the lowest amounts to drag performers and make it your headline. These independent contractors are out of work with the closures and due to your faith based beliefs they’re somehow less worthy of support during this displacement? Be Better, Suzanne. Suck less.

    • They should have gotten better careers. The business that support life and daily needs of the people are the ones we need. We can live without art.

  40. Lon, your radically statist and activist LGBTQIBSTABCXYZ community itself is an attack, on sanity, society and freedom as well. Mental illness is not a right, much less something to be paraded and applauded.

  41. Maslow’s Hierarchy of (human) Needs:
    It’s an idea of societal balance that does include space at the top for self-actualization (creativity, art), but only after physical and security needs are met.
    A healthy arts culture can therefore be a litmus test for a healthy society: once you’ve met all the basic needs of your society, you can flourish.
    You can only force the prioritization of self-actualization (arts) on an unhealthy-society (ours currently) if you’re willing to stand on the backs of people who don’t yet have their physical and security needs met; prioritizing one person’s “final-need”, to create, over the very basic needs of another.
    We do need the arts, but how far do we have to kick the survival can down the road before people make adult decisions with money.

    Lol, seriously, homeless people will have to walk past art hanging in the corpse-windows of shuttered businesses…

    I can’t believe you think you’re doing a good job

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