I am almost finished re-reading the Pulitzer Prize winning novel Middlesex by Jeffrey Eugenides. On May 21st at 11:30 I will lead a Books and Brushes session at the Winnipeg Art Gallery where we will use Middlesex as our inspiration for looking at various pieces of art currently on view in the galleries. This is the fourth Books and Brushes session I have been assigned. Sometimes finding connections between a book and paintings or sculptures in the galleries is pretty easy. Other times when I start reading a novel I wonder how I will connect it at all. 
I first read Middlesex several years ago and just loved the breathtaking prose. Eugenides has this way of describing things and people and events that forces you to go back to read his words over and over and again because they paint such a wondrous picture. But on this second reading I couldn’t get too distracted by the beauty of the words because I had to focus on connections I could make between the book and the WAG art collection.
The first connection was easy. Middlesex tells the moving story of Calliope Helen Stephanides a hermaphrodite born in 1960 in Detroit into an incredibly colorful Greek family. Calliope eventually becomes Cal a fascinating man who works for the American state department in Berlin.
Androgyny by Norval Morrisseau 1983
I knew the reason Middlesex had been chosen by McNally Robinson the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s partner in the Books and Brushes series was because we currently have Norval Morrisseau’s giant mural Androgyny on view in the main lobby of our building. But what other works of art might connect with the book?
Clouds, Lake Superior- by Lawren Harris 1923
I read and wondered and read and wondered and then about a hundred pages in Voilà! I found a connection to the paintings of Lawren Harris one of Canada’s famous Group of Seven.
Margaux Hemingway by Tony Scherman
A hundred pages later I made a huge asterisk in my notes by a section of the novel that related perfectly to some new work at the gallery by Canadian artist Tony Scherman.
This kept happening so even though I am not quite finished re-reading Middlesex I know there will be plenty for me to talk about with my fellow book and art lovers on May 21st.
There is still lots of time for you to buy the book at McNally Robinson read it, and come and join me to discover the connections I’ve made between art and a beautifully written novel. You might even make some connections of your own and I’d love to talk about them with you. You can find out all the details about the book club here. Hope to see you there!
Other posts……….
I brought this framed baby blanket along this weekend when I went to Saskatoon to meet my new granddaughter. The blanket belongs to her now. 
The blanket was made by Marie Gerbrandt Jantz my great-grandmother shown here around 1894 in Hillsboro Kansas with her husband Peter and their eight children. My granddaughter’s middle name is Marie so she shares a name with her great, great, great-grandmother. 
Marie and her family immigrated to Drake Saskatchewan in 1906 when this photo was taken. My grandmother Annie is standing closest to her mother. It wasn’t many years later that Marie’s husband Peter died. 
My grandmother Annie married Peter Schmidt and in 1925 they had a daughter Dorothy Marie who was my mother. 
The night my mother was born her grandmother Marie came to stay at her daughter Annie’s home. She brought along a beautiful blanket she had stitched for the new baby. My mother was given the second name Marie after her grandmother. 
Marie spent the rest of her life living with her daughter Annie. She died when my mother, her granddaughter was sixteen. Because she lived with my mother’s family for so many years Marie played an important role in my mother’s life. 
My mother grew up, became a teacher and married Paul Peters. 
I was born in 1953 and my grandmother Annie passed on the baby blanket her mother Marie had made for my mother Dorothy Marie so my mother could use it for me.
I grew up, became a teacher and married David Driedger. 
In 1979 when my son was born my mother had the blanket framed and gave it to me at a family baby shower. I hung the framed blanket in our nursery. I have kept it all these years wondering what I should do with it, but when my son and his wife decided to give their daughter the second name Marie, I knew that the blanket should go to her because it was my granddaughter’s great, great, great grandmother Marie who had made the blanket for her own granddaughter Dorothy Marie. 
Thursday night I attended a cooking class at De Luca’s restaurant with my sister and two of her friends. 
Our affable host Tony welcomed us to his well-known family establishment which opened in 1968
and introduced us to Chef Mike who would show us how each dish was prepared. 
First up was a tomato soup served along with three kinds of fresh bread. 
Tony was on hand to answer any questions we might have about ingredients or cooking methods. 
I missed writing on my blog yesterday because I was busy writing reports. There is only one week left till the university student teachers I supervise finish their practicum blocks in classrooms in two inner city schools. I have to write three informal reports for each of them and one longer formal report, so with eight students on my roster that’s thirty-two reports. These aren’t checklists like some report cards, but are more like essays filled with specific anecdotes. Each final report has to be vetted by both the cooperating teachers in the classrooms where the students work, and by the students themselves. Appropriate edits and changes are made till we all agree it accurately reflects the student’s performance. 
What Next? 