Steven,
Thanks for taking the time to do this. These are obviously some very broad questions so please feel free to take liberties in answering them.
Tell me a little bit about the impetus for the internet radio broadcast.
I listen to radio, watch television and am an avid reader of any aspect of the Visual Arts in Seattle. To put it bluntly, unless you commit some heinous crime in Seattle, the media does not cover the Visual Arts. Sure we have a few art critics on the newspapers, but their function seems to be to describe what they see. What we try to do with Art Radio Seattle is provide some analysis about the meaning of what is going on here. The internet allows John Wells and myself to have a weekly conversation about the Visual Arts in Seattle. We try to keep it from 5 to 10 minutes long because we do not want to talk anyone into boredom.

What are the issues you are most interested in covering in Seattle?
Personally, I am interested in the lack of resources available to working Visual Artists in Seattle. If we do not invest in our local artists, we will continue to be beholding to other centers like New York, Berlin, Rotterdam, Toyko, Seoul, Chicago, LA, and Cleveland. Supporting local artists is not an act of provincialism but is at the core, a civic good. Seattle right now leads the global creative community in the areas of; live interactive video mixing, video installation, and audio sound pieces. Our young artists use new technologies to get their imagery out across the planet. We all know of a local artist who had to move to New York before anyone was interested in their work here.

I know it's a very broad question, but where do you see the Seattle art scene right now? Is it growing or stagnating?
There is no single Seattle art scene but rather several circles of artistic communities which occasionally overlap. The real story about the Visual Arts in Seattle is that since 1851 the arts have been constantly growing. In our Art Institutions, the conventional wisdom has been "If you build it they will come." Obviously this hasn't worked for the EMP or the Museum of Glass. The problem is not in what type of building you have, but in the content of what you are presenting. The rise of alternative venues, such as bars and cafes, give many more artists opportunities than all of the Commercial and non-profit Galleries put together. Many artists are cutting out the middle man [gallery owners], and selling directly to the patron. Co-operative spaces like SOIL are another route which many pursue. In my opinion, the Seattle art scene is growing while the museums and galleries are stagnating.

What is happening locally that you don't think is getting enough coverage?
1.) The unique visual language in Contemporary Painting being developed in the Northwest by Joseph Park, Francesca Sundsten, Sarah Bergmann, Adde Russell, and Ben Pedersen which combines Pop and Surrealist imagery with Latin American Magical Realism. 2.) Any work by Cris Bruch. 3.) Using visual imagery on non-traditional surfaces, like t-shirts. 4.) Visual Art on the internet. 5.) The relationship between music and the Visual Arts. 6.) SUTTONBERESCULLER. 7.) Artist Books and the letterpress.

In light of the Los Angeles Times article about the crisis of criticism with even Dave Hickey weighing in that critics in the traditional sense becoming an antiquated idea, where do you see arts bloggers fitting in? Are they taking the place of traditional critical outlets? Is it more democratic this way?
Criticism is always in crisis. When Robert Motherwell, Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg were trying to figure out what was going on in New York in 1946, that was a crisis of criticism. I cannot imagine that anything Arthur C. Danto has to say is irrelevant. The art blog is just another way critical reaction gets out there. The internet has not stopped people buying books about art, so I believe that the critic is not going to be replaced by the blogger. Hickey is right in that the art critic is going to have to adapt and be more accountable, but criticism has been around since Diderot and has adapted before. The thing that the art blog has achieved is in breaking down barriers that the publishing triangle of New York to Boston to D.C. once put in place. The critic is no longer limited by geography, only by the capacity of their own intelligence. I am sure that what ever I say, there will be many bloggers who disagree with me.