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Colorado Is Arty. Just Check Out the Artposium and the Art Ranch

Written by Marj Hahne

Artist/naturalist Sherrie York and participants sketching their observations

So, whaddya get when you cross a farmer, a fly fisherman, a cellist, and a poet?

Artposium.

Don’t go anywhere. This isn’t some overly intellectual, artsy-fartsy event for the conspicuously pompous. It’s a weekend of smart, interdisciplinary presentations, conversations, and workshops organized around an art-meets-land theme germane to the locale. Held twice annually in different Colorado towns, the next Artposium is coming up real soon: May 16–18 in Steamboat Springs

I attended the Colorado Art Ranch’s first two Artposia last year. The first was in Salida in May, and the second was in Durango in September.

Salida’s theme was “The River Runs Through Us,” featuring environmental-installation artists Christo and Jeanne-Claude (who are currently developing their Over the River project for the Arkansas River), among other visual artists, writers, and fly fisherpeople.

Durango’s theme, “Mapping in the Arts: Ways of Seeing,” was comprehensively traversed by author Peter Turchi, physicist Nikos Salingaros, naturopathic doctor Louise Edwards, and art gallery owner Julie Saul, among others.

This year’s Steamboat Springs theme is “Plains, Frames, and Land Use Ideals,” with fourth-generation carrot farmer and environmental artist Matthew Moore, poet Heid Erdrich, a cellist, a rancher, a fly fishing guide, a rural planner,…you get the idea. Think full meal of appetizers. Think fun—if you like to laugh, play with ideas, meet cool people.

Arts + People + Place is the tagline of the Colorado Art Ranch—and they deliver on all three. Conceived in the fall of 2005 by Grant Pound and his equally tireless partner-in-wedlock, Peggy Lawless, this unique arts organization also offers two month-long residencies a year for visual and literary artists in the rural locales hosting the Artposia.

Residents contribute any kind of project to the local community—a presentation, reading, workshop, school visit, open studio—to participate in and enrich the community’s engagement with art.

Nomadic is the Colorado Art Ranch’s most distinguishing feature. Twice a year, in the spring and fall, a good many folks from around the country return to attend the Artposium—we’ve been dubbed Nomads—joined by diverse new faces turned on by this seldom-explored intersection of the arts, the land, and social issues. For me, it’s a terrific way to stay connected to kindred spirits, and to visit all the distinctive towns in Colorado while feeding an insatiably hungry mind and, yes, soul.

Mapper and musician Gavin Maurer at a Durango workshop

When the Colorado Art Ranch awarded me a residency in Durango last fall, it was an acknowledgement of my poetry that has been enduringly meaningful, unlike the occasional glimmer of light (“We are pleased to inform you that our editors have accepted…”) that finally makes its way back from the black-hole literary-journal submission game. I had also been invited to deliver a poetry workshop, “Poetry of Place,” at the Durango Artposium. So, in full disclosure, I’m a biased reporter, but I’m also the horse’s mouth this comes straight from, having experienced the Colorado Art Ranch and its Artposia full-out—as attendee, writer-in-residence, and workshop presenter.

Thinking about the poetry biz sure makes me lose my sense of humor. Just in time, this fall’s Artposium theme is “What’s So Funny about Art?”

To attract Front Rangers to test-drive this tricky-to-describe model, this Artposium will differ from its predecessors in that it’s a one-day event (Saturday, October 4) held in not-so-rural Denver.

Tickling our minds and funny bones will be New Yorker cartoonist Roz Chast, former Saturday Night Live writer Patricia Marx, president of the International Society of Humor Studies Rod Martin, and certified Laughter Yoga teachers Meredith and David Vaughn, just to name a handful of the folks exploring the role humor plays in artistic expression and social discourse.