Make your own damn art

The Winnipeg Art Gallery (the WAG), is Canada's oldest public art gallery. It's also either the bow of a proud ship or a block of cheese, depending on how hungry you are when you're looking at it. Gorgeous building. It's made from Tyndall Stone, of which Carol Shields writes in The Stone Diaries: "Some folks call it tapestry stone, and they prize, especially, its random fossils: gastropods, brachiopods, trilobites, corals and snails. As the flesh of these once-living creatures decayed, a limey mud filled the casings and hardened to rock."

Apparently this limestone, which comes from a quarry in the village of Garson near Winnipeg, is used all across Canada in buildings (including the Museum of Civilization in Hull). It's pretty. So pretty it makes me wonder why Winnipeg founders didn't make a bylaw back in the 18whatevers that required all buildings in the city core to be made from the stuff. Winnipeg could have been a city of white gleaming on the plains -- a Jerusalem of the prairies (or for you Tolkien fans -- a Gondor of the north).

Like I say, pretty building. Too bad it's located along a stretch of urban wasteland. At least it's walking distance from my place. Went last Sunday to check out the exhibitions, and was impressed with the place. It's not huge, but it is full of good stuff. Currently it's showing off some cool Marvel comic book cover art, an exhibition of funny (or funny-ish) pieces that includes a stand-up comedy karaoke installation, and a collection of mind-blowingly beautiful prints by Aboriginal artist Daphne Odjig, as well as a permanent collection of Group of Sevens and First Nations sculptures.

Fittingly (for a building that looks like it's built out of the same stone as all the buildings in the holy city), Odjig's collection features prints from her Jerusalem Series -- which came out of a trip to the Holy Land. These pieces have an obvious Judaic visual style -- and it's cool to see how easily that flows into Odjig's Aboriginal design.

Which makes me wonder: Did one of the lost tribes of Israel make it over to North America a couple of thousand years ago and bring their fingerpaints with them? Maybe that can be the subject of Dan Brown's next book, with Spielberg directing the inevitable movie adaptation.