Frida

Frida Kahlo, softball, and gourds--three seemingly unrelated topics, but on this brisk March evening at the top of the third inning, I begin to write this blog...and yes, I am watching my daughter's game, but there is a lot of down time.

I know am just one of the millions of Frida admirers out there in the universe. For me, the first time I saw one of her paintings it was her blunt visual honesty that slapped me in the artistic cheek and then her technical ability that slapped me on the other cheek--I was immediately hooked!

Through the years I have "borrowed" things from her work. Many moons ago I did a painting for my mom called They Live in Her Dreams that was inspired by Frida's Self-Portrait with Monkeys. I depicted my sleeping mother dreaming about her children in Mexico. (At the time she had just come home from volunteering in an orphanage in Queretero, Mexico and was missing her kids.)

The next "borrowed" item was from Frida's painting/collage called My Dress Hangs There. My painting is called My Bra Hangs Here and at the time I was thinking about where I was from (Colorado), where I had just lived (Guatemala), and where I was now (California).

Fast forward to the present day...I have been wanting to do something with the zillion gourd pieces that I just can't seem to throw away so I decided to attempt a Frida gourd mosaic. After many hours of cutting and gluing (including my own fingers) I completed Thinking About Gourds which is a light hearted twist on her serious painting entitled Thinking About Death.

Sidenote: My mom just returned from Mexico and sent me these pictures of the 500 peso bill that portrays Frida on one side and Diego on the other. Frida's influence just keeps going....