Seeking Art's Funnybone

What do The Daily Show, New Yorker cartoons and standup comics have in common? This weekend, the traveling Colorado Art Ranch comes to Denver to find out. Its Artposium, titled “What’s So Funny About Art?,” will explore the ways that writers, artists and even yoga teachers use laughter to open your mind.

The roster of speakers includes two New Yorker greats: cartoonist Roz Chast and columnist Patty Marx, who wrote for Saturday Night Live “back when they were funny,” says Grant Pound, Art Ranch executive director.

Then there’s local visual artist Bill Amundson, whose drawings point out the absurdities of suburban life, and Libby Rowe, a Tennessee artist whose work uses sock monkeys, a Slinky and other fun props to raise questions about sex and modern womanhood. The goal of all the presentations, says Pound, is to look at humor “pretty seriously as a tool for communication.”

And just in case the workshops and speeches start to feel a bit too much like school, Meredith and David Vaughn, local Laughter Yoga teachers, will be on hand to make sure no one gets bored.

The two-day Artposium will be held at St. Cajetan’s Center on the Auraria campus. It began yesterday at 6 p.m. and runs through tonight. Tickets are $200 ($150 for students) for the full two-day affair, but you can pay $25 for the Friday-night reception only, which includes Chast’s presentation. For more information, go to www.coloradoartranch.org or call 303-279-5198.
Fri., Oct. 3, 6:30-10 p.m.; Sat., Oct. 4, 8:30 a.m.-10 p.m., 2008