This is The Year of the Round Number at the Seattle Art Fair. Exactly 100 art galleries are taking part this year, up from 62 galleries in 2015 and 84 galleries in 2016. Art Fair director Max Fishko, in a phone interview last week, said he and his selection committee received roughly 250 applications to fill between 90 and 100 booths.

“We wound up with 100 on the nose — which, I have to admit, was particularly satisfying,” he said. Fishko’s Brooklyn-based company, Art Market Productions, coordinates half a dozen art fairs a year and Fishko spends much of his time on the global prowl, seeking out new arts talent. “I go to all the other art fairs,” he said. “I try to connect with the right people to get involved in the project.” For the 2017 Seattle Art Fair, he looked with particular interest in the Japanese art scene. “I think now we have maybe fifteen galleries that are coming from that part of the world.  A lot of energy went into making that happen.”

But it isn’t just the art that has Fishko buzzed this year. There are, he says, some “amazing collectors” who have plans to attend the event. That may come as a surprise to Seattleites who assume we’re a second-tier city when it comes to the wheeling and dealing of the international art scene. “That’s really the most satisfying element because when that begins to happen and you begin to have that feeling like everybody in the art world is going to be in Seattle in August, that’s when we really feel like we’ve been successful.” So what are local curators and artists most looking forward to seeing or experiencing at Seattle Art Fair 2017?

Diane Rosenstein Gallery: The draw at this Los Angeles gallery’s booth is the work of Gisela Colon, whose abstract blow-molded acrylic “morph pods,” “hyper ellipsoids” and “light slabs” look gorgeous. Can’t wait to see them in the flesh.