Art Beat a weekly column by Frieda Cohen It's almost that time of year again, when our age-old downtown tradition, City Arts, takes over 12 blocks of prime real estate to showcase the work of local artists. Visitors will notice a stark difference this year, however. The organizers made an unfortunate choice to exclude the work of university art students and only show pieces from established artists from the downtown galleries. Like many who come to the festival, I always count on being able to purchase affordable art as holiday gifts while supporting student artists making their way through an expensive art program. Their presence at the festival seemed to balance out the snobbery and elitism of artworks costing thousands of dollars that none but the affluent could afford to take home. This year, I'm afraid the vast majority of us must be content with looking and not buying. The art students struggling to make names for themselves must seek out other venues to showcase their work. Sadly, our city's reputation as an open and supportive environment for up-and-coming artists is quickly fading into the sunset. We can only hope that those talented art students, once they graduate, will find some other good reasons to stick around. The author probably wrote this passage to

A convince her audience to boycott the arts festival in protest.
B complain that she won't be able to afford to buy gifts at this year's fest.
C inform readers that the City Arts street fair is about to begin.
D express her opinion that excluding students from the festival is wrong.