An Art Nerd in Seattle

Art is like electricity. It's a current running through my life which I never want to stop. Art makes me alive. In the words of Owen David, a local Seattle arts lover, dancer and arts administrator, it is a "redeeming factor of humanity". I can't say I remember the first gallery walk I ever went on in Seattle, but since that first time it's become a tradition every month to go on first Thursday art walk downtown and second Thursday art walk in Capitol Hill. Something about the combination of free art, wide open gallery doors on dark nights, and excited artists and gallerists bubbling with fascinating things to say makes me come back again and again. Yet galleries, and the majority of professional arts, for that matter, continue to run into the same two issues. They are no longer part of most people's daily lives. And they are filled with barriers some many groups of people (people of color, those who are low-income, and youth, to name a few) all