Lynda Barry visits NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (flickr)

Creative activities are too often thought of as childhood pastimes, and many of us gave them up early in life. But why do we long for them still? Are creativity and biology interconnected?

Artist and author Lynda Barry thinks everything we call “art” has something in common, something that feels alive and is contained and transported by something that is not alive -- a book, a song, or a painting.

During a May 31 SFI Community Lecture in Santa Fe, Barry explored our innate ability to work with images and asks what the biological function of this thing we call “the arts” might be.

Read a preview of the talk in Pasatiempo (May 27, 2016)

Barry's talk is an Albuquerque Journal Top Pick of the Week (May 27, 2016)

Barry is assistant professor of interdisciplinary creativity at the Wisconsin Institute for Discovery’s Image Lab. Widely credited with expanding the literary, thematic, and emotional range of American comics through her groundbreaking weekly strip Ernie Pook’s Comeek, she has written 17 books, worked as a commentator for NPR, and adapted her 1988 novel The Good Times Are Killing Me into a long-running off-Broadway play.

SFI’s 2016 Community Lecture series is made possible through generous underwriting from Thornburg Investment Management, with additional support from The Lensic Performing Arts Center

Upcoming SFI community events.