Book Club: Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg

Thursday, November 04, 2021 @ 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm

SECCA's Throughlines Book Club is open to the public. The book club reads primarily contemporary fiction and memoir, exploring how such works speak to (or against) our understanding of what it means to be human, how language shapes our reality, and how technology affects our relationships. The club meets regularly at the Southeastern Center for Contemporary Art (SECCA) in Winston-Salem.

For our next meetup, we'll be discussing Emily Black's "Frida Kahlo and My Left Leg". The discussion will be led by Terry Schupbach-Gordon. 

Support our local book store by purchasing the book from Bookmarks, available here. Book club members, make sure to mention SECCA's book club when checking out in-store at Bookmarks to get 20% off your book club purchase! For online orders, use discount code "20SECCA".

Throughlines is a new series of discussions, workshops, and performances that explore issues important to our communities through the power of invention and conversation. Join us and take part as we diverge from the beaten path to seek out fresh ideas.

ABOUT THE BOOK

A New York Times-bestselling author's personal examination of how the experiences, art, and disabilities of Frida Kahlo shaped her life as an amputee.

At first sight of Frida Kahlo's painting The Two Fridas, Emily Rapp Black felt a connection with the artist. An amputee from childhood, Rapp Black grew up with a succession of prosthetic limbs and learned that she had to hide her disability from the world.

Kahlo sustained lifelong injuries after a horrific bus crash, and her right leg was eventually amputated. In Kahlo's art, Rapp Black recognized her own life, from the numerous operations to the compulsion to create to silence pain. Here she tells her story of losing her infant son to Tay-Sachs, giving birth to a daughter, and learning to accept her body. She writes of how Frida Kahlo inspired her to find a way forward when all seemed lost.