Begun in May 2007, Carol Diehl’s blog Art Vent is a collection of personal and opinionated commentaries on contemporary visual art (as well as architecture, music, film, and literature) from an artist’s perspective. A critic and poet as well as a painter, she incorporates her own photographs along with links to videos and other supporting materials to create an open network that goes in both directions. While being a critic has honed her ideas and shaped her philosophy about art, the blog format enables her to merge critical analysis with the irreverent voice of the slam poet, and freely express her ideas outside of the controlled content of print publications. Carol Diehl has been making, teaching, and writing about art for more than thirty years. Largely self-taught, she has been influenced by several intense creative milieus: Chicago’s artist-run galleries (mid-1970s), New York’s legendary downtown scene (1980s), and the birth of slam poetry at the Nuyorican Poets Cafe (early 1990s). Guided by inspiring mentors (Jane Allen at Chicago’s New Art Examiner, John Coplans at Artforum, and poet/impresario Bob Holman), she learned to write on the job—just as she learned to teach in the classroom when Lucio Pozzi asked her to take over his class at the School of Visual Arts. She taught graduate painting and writing at SVA for ten years and at Bennington College for four years. Her painting has been represented by the Sidney Janis Gallery, Hirschl & Adler Modern, and Gary Snyder Fine Art. She has written for Art in America since 1997 as a contributing editor, as well as for numerous other publications.