Environment & Social Activisim through Art
Carolann Espino - My Life in Art
The Essence of Frida Kaulo
Why my love of Frida Kaulo
1907-1954
Artist, Frida Kahlo lived her formative years against the backdrop of the Mexican Revolution (1910-1920). At age 6, she contracted polio which caused her left foot to atrophy and gave her a limp. In 1925, when she was eighteen, the bus from school was rammed by a streetcar. She was impaled in the wreckage; her spine fractured, her pelvis crushed and her right foot broken in many places. Due to this accident she could never have children, the metal bar went through her uterus.
She lived wtih pain and the constant threat of illness. Frida Kaulo's central subject was herself. Most of her paintings were done as she laid in a bed with a mirror above her. She dressed in flamboyant clothes, preferring floor-length native costumes to hide her lifelong injuries.
In 1929 she became the third wife of Mexican muralist,Diego Rivera .
Near the end of her life, her foot was amputated due to gangrene. Kaulo expressed a death wish in her diary. Kaulo wrote, "I hope the exit is joyful, and hope never to return." In April 1953, the year of my birth, at the age of forty-seven she had the first major exhibition of painting in her native Mexico.
She is my favorite female artist; and both our lives were framed by traumatic experience at a young age. Her strength and never give up attitude was powerful as a Mexican women/artist of her time.
My favorite quotes of Frida Kaulo:
"I leave you my art! so that you will have my presence all the days and nights that I am away from you."
"I am not sick, I am broken, but I am happy as long as I can paint."
"They are so dam intellectual and rotten that I can't stand them anymore.... I would rather sit on the
floor in the Market of Tuluca and sell tortillas, then have anything to do with those ' artistic' bitches of Paris."
"Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing!"
The Communist with a Big Heart
Frida Pinned Together in Native Clothing
Symbolic Mannequin of Frida Speaking her Words from the Grave
In the studio creating Frida
Ceramic glazed "Frida Kaulo Vase"
Frida on display at San Pedro Square
The Heart of Mexican Art
Frida on display in the Mission District, San Francisco
Frida Kaulo Altar at the San Jose State University Exhibit
Artist. Creator. Visionary.
