A while back I wrote something that made people argue. It was called "The Vancouver Problem"—the title being a throwback to the days when men would go around saying there was a "Woman Problem" or whites would call the fight for civil rights the "Race Problem."

In this case, I claimed, Seattle had a Vancouver problem, and it was basically that Vancouver art is better than Seattle art.

You can see why people argued.

Tonight at 7 pm at the University of Puget Sound in Tacoma we're going to continue the argument, but my voice will just be one among several.

There's Seattle artist Matthew Offenbacher, Tacoma Art Museum curator Rock Hushka, Vancouver artist-curator Jonathan Middleton, Vancouver curator Scott Watson, and the event is organized by Tacoma-based artist Elise Richman.

Are the differences about funding or logistics, or are they more fundamental than that? Is there anything to be learned? What's the role of the recent BC funding cuts going to be in affecting not only Vancouver but all of us in the Northwest?

I'm planning to stay pretty quiet, unlike usual. I want to hear what everyone else has to say.