“Artists and supporters of the Alaska State Council on the Arts gathered outside its offices in Anchorage to say farewell on Monday afternoon,” writes Chris Bieri in Wednesday’s (7/17) Anchorage Daily News. “The agency closed Monday…. About 50 people … gathered outside the Alaska State Council on the Arts … to mourn the passing of the organization, which closed its doors after its funding was eliminated by a budget veto by Gov. Mike Dunleavy earlier this month—a $2.8 million cut. The elimination of the agency leaves Alaska as the only state in the U.S. to be without a state arts council. According to council chairman Benjamin Brown, the state’s general fund contributes $700,000 of the council’s funding directly; $700,000 in federal funds through the National Endowment for the Arts and $1.5 million in private foundation funds were also vetoed and can’t be accepted. [Sheryl Maree Reily] who was a member of the council’s visual arts advisory committee … said the loss of the council will be a big hole in the arts community. ‘This is going to leave a huge vacuum,’ she said. ‘There is going to be no formal mechanism for connecting information, connecting funding.’ ”
Posted July 19, 2019
