Paint the pain: Frida Kahlo

Halloween 2013 I dressed as Frida Kahlo. At the time, I was rushed to throw together a costume for a friend’s party and looking up easy to do costume’s online, I saw a Frida idea that I knew I had every piece of the costume for except for some flowers for my hair. So I ran to the store and bought some clips from the little girl hair section to complete the costume. The most I knew about Frida Kahlo at the time was that she was a painter and mostly did/was known for her self portraits. I knew she was an icon. That is all.

My Frida inspired costume Halloween 2013.

After the Halloween party and numerous compliments on my costume, I knew I needed to learn more about Frida. Over this past holiday weekend, I watched the biopic “Frida” starring Selma Hayek. Loving the movie and her story, I was compelled to take in more Frida. Today, I downloaded the 62 page book “Frida: Viva La Vida! Long Live Life!” that held poetry, images of her work, some quotes from her personal journals and a timeline of events of her life.

Her story and her outlook on life are incredibly inspirational. A terrible crash and a life of tremendous physical and emotional pain caused by love and loss is what pushed her to create such strong artwork.

In her poetry, she asks, “Should I keep painting now that I have healed?” as if only in her pain can she paint.

“I paint and paint and paint all my pain.”

But, even though her life has been filled with a great amount of pain, it also was filled with a great amoung of joy and love. She was known for her love of life. She smoked, drank, cursed, danced, slept around, and ultimately LIVED. And her honesty is beautiful and painful.

“I never feel disappointed in life.”

My favorite quote that I’ve read so far shows how she has always painted for herself, no one else. She did not need to be famous or “discovered.” And this is one of the biggest reasons her work was so strong. She was her favorite and most well known subject and viewer. She needed not appease anyone but herself (and probably Diego.)

“I have never expected anything from my work but the satisfaction I could get from it by the very fact of painting and saying what I couldn’t say otherwise.”

Thanks, Google, for the costume idea so I could learn more about this strong spirit of a woman and artist.