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FY23 Project Grant for Artists (Cycle A) Panel to be held June 29-30, 2022

On June 29 and 30, 2022 a grant review panel will be held for the Fiscal Year 2023 (FY23) Project Grant for Artists (Cycle A). The panelists will discuss and score 41 applications. Each applicant requested up to $3,000 for a total request of $122,300. The FY23 Project Grant for Artists (Cycle A) supports supports individual artists in the production and presentation of artistic projects. The PGA is awarded twice a year for projects that take place during a specified six-month period. Examples of eligible projects include art exhibitions, performances, readings, concerts, the creation of art, recording, filming, portfolio creation, and marketing/ promotional activities related to an arts project.

PGA funds are divided into two six-month grant cycles:

  • CYCLE A: Activities July 1–December 31, 2022
  • CYCLE B: Activities January 1–June 30, 2023

For more information on the panel meeting and details on how to attend see the PUBLIC MEETING NOTICE.


The FY23 Project Grant for Artists (Cycle A) panelists are:

Adam Cates holds an MFA in Interdisciplinary Arts and a BA in Theatre. He is currently the head of education & development at the Pioneer Center for the Performing Arts in Reno where he also produces several performance programs. Prior to the pandemic, Adam called New York City home for 20 years where he worked as a creative artist and educator in musical theatre, opera, and dance. He has directed and/or choreographed for Santa Fe Opera, Juilliard Opera, Hartford Stage, Theatre Under the Stars, Theatre Aspen, Gulfshore Playhouse, Arkansas Rep, PCPA, Bard Music Festival, Anchorage Opera, Music Theatre Wichita, Memphis Playhouse on the Square, Little Orchestra Society at Lincoln Center, The Chance Theater, and others. Adam was a creative associate for the award-winning Broadway musicals A Gentleman’s Guide to Love & Murder, Anastasia, and Anything Goes, and regionally at Goodspeed, Paper Mill Playhouse, The Old Globe, Alabama Shakespeare, Kansas City Starlight, Seattle Opera, and more. He has held NYC faculty positions at Pace University, Marymount Manhattan College, Broadway Dance Center, Steps on Broadway, and Rosie O’Donnell’s Theater Kids, and has been a guest artist-in-residence for institutions across the USA including Texas State University, UC-Irvine, UNCSA, University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point, Theatre Arts Preparatory School in Las Vegas and UNR in Reno. He is the author of the best-selling guidebook for young performers The Business of Show and co-authored The World According to Snoopy (Concord Theatricals). As a performer, Adam appeared in several national tours, television shows, Disney productions, cruise ships, and regional theatre and opera.

Kathleen Kuo is a Program Manager with Nevada Humanities. She has previously worked at the Archives of Traditional Music, Mathers Museum of World Cultures, and the Lotus Education and Arts Foundation in Bloomington, Indiana. Kuo holds a BA in Psychology from the University of Chicago, an MA in Music from Tufts University, and completed her doctoral exams in Ethnomusicology at Indiana University.

Juliana Rico (she/they) is an award winning, nationally showcased, queer, Latinx, visual artist, educator, consultant, and academic. Their artistic practice focuses primarily in photography and video around topics of identity and representation having earned their BFA in Photography from San Jose State University and MFA in Creative Photography from California State University Fullerton. Rico is a passionate advocate for social justice, student success, diversity, equity, and authentic representation in educational and arts and culture spaces. She believes all underrepresented and marginalized groups who have felt unseen no longer have to accept the narrative placed on them; they can write their own. With this in mind, she co-launched OnlyIn LLC in 2020 and began producing Art in Motion Podcast in 2021, focusing on sharing the stories of BIPOC creatives. She is a full-time professor teaching photography and visual media literacy at Pasadena City College who mentors community members through community organizations.

Professor Patricia Vázquez is a native of Las Vegas, the daughter of Mexican immigrants, who has been teaching composition and literature at the College of Southern Nevada for twenty-four years. After graduating from Chaparral High School in 1984, she went to Arizona State University to pursue a Bachelor’s degree in Painting (1990) and a Master’s degree in Comparative Literature (1995). With a specialization was in Latin American Literature, her thesis focused on the work of Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz. A number of her painting are currently on exhibit and the Level Up Gallery on the second floor of the C building on the Henderson campus of the College of Southern Nevada. Her more recent scholarship has been devoted to the work of Dante. At the MLA Conference on January 9, 2022, she delivered a paper dissecting the wild cat, la lonza, from Canto I of the Inferno. After her sabbatical in Italy in 2018 , Vázquez published an article, “Dante’s Cannibal Count: Unnatural Hunger and Its Reckoning,” in the Spring 2020 issue of Arion, an academic journal published by Boston University.

Vivian Zavataro is the Director & Chief Curator of the Lilley Museum of Art, at the University of Nevada, Reno. She is a museologist who specializes in contemporary art, transhistoricity, and art mediation. She has traveled widely working for museums, galleries, and contemporary art exhibitions in order to broaden her knowledge and experience of the art world. Her goal is to facilitate interaction between art and the public. Diversity, inclusion, and creativity are essential aspects of her practice.