Why do people wish they could write, sing, dance, and draw, long after they’ve given up on these things? Does creative activity have a biological function? There is something common to everything we call the arts. What is it? It’s something I call ‘an image’, something that feels alive and is contained and transported by something that is not alive- a book, or a song or a painting—anything we call an ‘art form’. This ancient ‘it’ has been around at least as long as we have had hands, and the state of mind it brings about is not plain old ‘thinking’. This talk is about our innate creative ability to work with images and what the biological function of this thing we call ‘the arts’ may be. Please note: There will be swear words, party tricks, and jokes about balls.

Free tickets online .

Lynda Barry has worked as a painter, cartoonist, writer, illustrator, playwright, editor, commentator, and teacher and found that they are very much alike. She lives in Wisconsin, where she is associate professor of art and Discovery Fellow at University of Wisconsin Madison. Barry is the creator behind the seminal comic strip that was syndicated across North America in alternative weeklies for two decades, Ernie Pook's Comeek. Among her works are Cruddy, an illustrated novel; One! Hundred! Demons!, an autobiography (of sorts), and the acclaimed creative how-to graphic novels What It Is ,which won the Eisner Award for Best Reality Based Graphic Novel, and Syllabus: Notes From an Accidental Professor.