In Seattle's visual art scene, 2006 was the year of blurred boundaries.

Freelance art curators competed with the museum-employed; non-profits went head-to-head with commercial spaces, and artist teams grabbed the spotlight from rugged individuals. It's the year Seattle artists headed online to create art on a virtual island, a project scheduled to make it big in 2007.

My top 10 list features nine pros, but it wouldn't be complete without one con.

1. Lawrimore Project: From the outside, the building at 831 Airport Way S. is anonymous modernism. Even though Scott Lawrimore took over from a sign company this year, there's no sign to announce his presence. Only those who walk inside get the full effect of his radical chic, from the concrete floor and concrete board walls of the first gallery to his mint-green waiting room, elegant cluster of other gallery spaces and his office on concrete blocks, a tribute to his youth in a trailer park.

Designed by Seattle's Lead Pencil, there's nothing quite like this space anywhere.

Then there are his artists, the strongest lineup since Donald Young opened here in the 1990s. Unlike Young, whose artists tend to have blue-chip credentials, Lawrimore's are mostly young and unproven in a commercial gallery, until now.

Lawrimore is a commercial space that feels alternative, a smaller version of Western Bridge or a larger version of Suyama Space and the Wright Space.

2. Freelance art curators: Beth Sellars, Jess Van Nostrand, Suzanne Beal, Carrie E.A. Scott, Steven Michael Vroom, Jordan Howland, Deborah Paine, Greg Lundgren, Michael Van Horn, Fionn Meade and Tracey Fugami are some of the people giving museum curators curatorial competition. The result is better shows in alternative spaces, temporary spaces, art centers, bars, coffee shops and restaurants.

3. Artist teams: In the Northwest, artists who team up have been leaping over single place-holders. Best in their fleet-footed category are SuttonBeresCuller and Lead Pencil (Lawrimore Project), and Halley & Maxwell (Howard House). Temporary teams are fabulous too: Billy of the Lowland (Punch Gallery), Malfunction (Soil) and Murmurs (Howard House).

4. Crawl Space: Talk about a hole in the wall. Behind a wooden fence at 504 E. Denny Way, Crawl Space emerged this year as a contender for most influential new gallery. But it isn't a gallery, really, just alternative space run by a tiny team of artists that's better than 90 percent of what passes for galleries in Seattle. Let's make that 95 percent.

5. Aqua Art Fair: For the second year, Aqua Art Fair gave the Northwest a chance to shine at the most important gathering of art forces in the country: Basel/Miami earlier this month. Plus, the sun was shining and Cuban coffee is better than Starbucks.

6. Best museum exhibits: "Swallow Harder" (Ben and Aileen Krohn Collection), "Acting Out: Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore" and "Erwin Wurm" (through Jan. 28) at the Frye; "American Art Deco and the Seattle Art Museum" (through Jan. 15); "Shirin Neshat: Tooba" (through July 1) at Seattle Asian Art Museum; "Kelly Mark Thanks Everybody for Everything," Maya Lin, Walid Raad, Santiago Cucullu and "Sign Language" at the Henry; "Double Take" (through Jan. 15) at EMP.

7. Best exhibits at alternative spaces: "Billy of the Lowlands" at Punch; "Façade" at Soil; "Into Black," "Crash/Pause/Rewind" and "Boys and Flowers" at Western Bridge; "Softly Threatening: Artwork of the Modern Domestic" at Bumbershoot; Tivon Rice at 4Culture and the Hedreen Gallery in the Lee Center.

8. Best exhibits at galleries: Rachel Maxi at Baas Gallery; Lauren Grossman, Cat Clifford, Alex Schweder and Ken Fandell at Howard House; Todd Simeone, Jeffry Mitchell, Geoffrey Chadsey and "Junctions" at James Harris; Chris Engman, Tim Roda and Michael Knutson at Greg Kucera; Jaq Chartier at Platform; SuttonBeresCuller, Susie Lee, Tivon Rice at Lawrimore Project; Tra Selhtrow at OKOK; Gaylen Hansen at Linda Hodges; Denzil Hurley at Francine Seders; Susan Dory, Bo Barlett and Brian Murphy at Winston Wachter.

9. Best show on the Web: That would be Seattle's Michael Van Horn's curatorial efforts on an island he paid real money for on Second Life, a virtual world created by Linden Lab. Look to hear more about it in 2007.

10. Curtains at ConWorks: The Dead and Didn't Know It Award goes to Seattle's ConWorks, which quietly admitted its demise last month. That was four months after the board announced it had lost its space, and a year after it really died, when the board fired founder Matt Richter. Everyone else who mattered left with him or was already gone. Richter and crew: Thanks for a great run.