The first time I went to the massive, citywide art fair Art Basel Miami Beach was in 2006, when the fair was so smoking hot that I was shamed into going. These are the first sentences in the piece I wrote about it.

It's a windy night in Miami, and a man ordering rum drinks for two sleek, dark-haired women at the poolside bar of the Raleigh Hotel finds himself grabbed by the neck and dragged away loudly by another man in a suit and a thick gold chain who tells the first man that "he" is upstairs in the room and will not wait any longer to do business. Their leaving provides a view from the bar of a set of wicker chairs under rustling palm trees, a few empty, others inhabited by a bored woman, two bored men, and Keanu Reeves. Past this, the conversation turns to Second Life, the online world where people build alternate lives, including American Apparel clothes and waterfront real estate, using real-world money. A beautiful BusinessWeek writer wearing a green shawl and holding her glass of red wine with both hands announces that Reuters now has a bureau in Second Life, with writers covering what goes on in Second Life. I consider with a shudder that in the future, I will be reporting on art shows that my virtual avatar will attend instead of me. Then it begins to storm, and rain falls on every strappy-sandaled toe. Shuffling through the hotel to the front exit, I find myself on the winning side of a velvet rope that hadn't been there on the way in, and I cross it to leave for bed.

This year I expect to write some very different sentences.

I'm leaving for Miami a week from today, and this time I'm going partly just to be contrarian: nobody else is going. The Seattle contingent has whittled down from approximately every single Seattle art person—the artists, the dealers, the collectors, the curators, the critics—to some lonely souls who probably won't even run into each other in the fray.

Two years ago there were a record 10 Seattle galleries in Miami; last year was down but still the list was long: SOIL, Howard House, PUNCH, G. Gibson, Greg Kucera, Winston Wächter Fine Art, and Platform.

This year it's crickets. Only one gallery is fully representing its lineup in Miami, La Familia—a gallery that has never been to Miami before and that in competitive years past probably wouldn't have gotten one of the coveted spots. Two other galleries (Howard House and Francine Seders) will be highlighting just one artist (Robert Yoder and Juan Alonso).

Plus, the hotel fair Aqua, which began in 2005 and made Seattle's name in Miami, is not happening at all this year. Aqua directors/Seattle artists Dirk Park and Jaq Chartier had to concentrate on their warehouse fair across town in Wynwood this year, because they are under lease to continue producing through this December there. They had a hard enough time filling Wynwood given the crashed economy; the hotel would have been more of a burden, and the hotel landlord wanted money up front, Park said.

I talked to Park the other day.

Q: I'm sad the hotel fair isn't happening.

A: It actually worked out for the best. It started in a kind of odd way with the owner of the hotel wanting a great deal of money up front, and we just weren't in a position to give him a great deal of money or any commitment until we knew what the year was going to look like. So at a certain point he started calling our exhibitors directly and saying I'm going to do the fair without them... and at a certain point we were dealing with lawyers. Fiasco. We just stopped talking to him.

I would never say there's no chance that we would do it again. If he came back and was more reasonable...

Nothing is going on at the beach except for Ink and Verge, and we haven't been hearing great things about either one of them. I know that their numbers are down considerably. So I don't think the beach fairs or the hotel fairs are going to be as big a factor this year. But maybe next year, maybe the year after, maybe we can come back like the phoenix out of the fire, the way the art market is going to be the phoenix out of the fire.

Q: What's the future for your warehouse fair?

A: The lease is up at the end of the month of December for Wynnwood. It was a 2 ½-year lease. My feeling is that it's really dependent on some sense of what is happening at the end of this coming week (as to whether we re-sign). We'll know pretty much whether there's a future or not. And if there is a future, then we're going to negotiate with our landlord. The rent definitely has to be something that we talk about. We signed the lease at the top of the market, like a lot of people.

Q: What's with solo shows by Seattle artists (Yoder, Alonso)? Are the artists kicking in cash?

A: Yeah, artists are participating in the fair, but under the umbrella sponsorship of the gallery. I don't know what specific financial arrangements they've made with their galleries, but it's about artists who feel there are opportunities there. And if the dealers won't come, then maybe the artists are in a better position to do that. Who to speak better about the work than the artists? So put yourself in the arena and see what happens.

Q: How are you really feeling now that you're down there and setting up? What do you think Miami will be like this year?

A: It's gonna be different, and I have no idea what that's going to mean in terms of the experience. My sense is that there is no static situation in the art world, that it's changing, changing, changing, and it will continue to change. I've been hearing people being very excited because things are starting to thaw in their galleries, they're starting to sell things for the first time in a year, so there's hope. Just as artists always feel hope. I mean, art is a hopeful occupation. It's about hope. And I think that's what Miami's about this year. Everyone's got high hopes. No one's got expectations that are beyond reasonable, but I think everybody has high hopes.