Category: Artist Frida Kahlo

Artist Frida Kahlo, Chingonas, Patssi Valdez, Vogue-Mexico, Wisdom

Wisdom for the Weekend-Frida Kahlo

Mona Alvarado Frazier
googleimages royalty free

The grey clouds outside, weighted with rain, will last through the weekend. I like the rain, but not when I’m feeling a little down and out. Like now.

Because I know that I can’t let the feelings take over or I’ll bury my head under the covers and stay in my PJ’s all day, I’m assembling some indoor activities to keep myself occupied-to keep my head up. 


I came across this Vogue cover. It’s the November 2012 issue in Mexico. 

Frida Kahlo is one of my very favorite chingonas.I feel  sad that I will miss a museum exhibition that this cover highlights. Las Apariencias Enganan ( Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The Dresses of Frida Kahlo) opens on November 22 at the artist’s museum, La Casa Azul in Coyocán, Mexico. Several pieces of Frida’s colorful, unique wardrobe, which set her apart from the women of her time (1930’s-50’s), will be on display.

Frida sits in a tranquil repose on this gorgeous cover. Sitting for Nikolaus Murray, the photographer, must have caused her pain. She suffered from polio, several broken bones including a crushed pelvis from an earlier bus accident, and a spinal cord injury. She was in traction for many months, wore a brace, and limped. And still this woman painted while recuperating in her bed, paintings that are renowned for their surrealist renderings.  

In this photograph, Frida projects a wisdom through her eyes-a knowing. Wisdom has many meanings. A simple yet profound one is from Wikipedia “Wisdom is also the comprehension of what is true coupled with optimum judgment as to action.”  Wisdom is also discernment, insight, lessons learned. 

Some wisdom from Frida Kahlo:

  • Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?  

  • At the end of the day, we can endure much more than we think we can. 

  • Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. 

  • I love a woman with cojones.  

  • I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought there are so many people in the world, there must be someone just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do. I would imagine her, and imagine that she must be out there thinking of me, too. 

 It’s raining now. I think I’ll begin the morning perusing the short stories and poems in my new issue of Huizache. What a gorgeous cover, huh. The art is titled ” The Crying Tree,” by Patssi Valdez. 



The artist notes, in the back of the book, state: “The crying tree is shedding the tears of distress and pain that one endures in a lifetime.”  When I read her quote I think of the wisdom of her words. 

In the picture, there is growth, vibrancy, fruit, seeds, and living plants growing right underneath that crying tree. I am reminded that although the clouds are heavy and I’m going through a sad period, that there is beauty from pain, grey clouds, and the rain. 

Artist Frida Kahlo, Chingonas, How to be a Chingona, poetry, Sandra Cisneros, Strong Women

Frida Kahlo- Chingona Artist

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Happy belated anniversary date to Frida Kahlo, a chingona artist. She died on July 13, 1954 leaving art that lives on in perpetuity through her incredibly emotive images and poetry.  

N.Muray collection

  
The term “Chingona” is a Spanglish term, slang, for a

bad ass, wise woman, powerful, individualist, self-activated, a woman who lives a life for their own approval, self-empowered, a strong woman 

You might find the word in an urban dictionary but it’s a subjective term that’s more of a concept than a specific definition.  I think most Latino’s agree with terms similar to those I mentioned above and could probably add more identifiers. 


Frida Kahlo de Rivera was a Mexican painter, and is perhaps best known for her self-portraits. Kahlo’s life began and ended in Mexico City, in her home known as
La Casa Azul ( the Blue House). Diego Rivera was her husband. Leon Trotsky and Nickolas Muray (the photographer of this 1938 photo) were her lovers.


One of my favorite authors, Sandra Cisneros, shares her perspective on “How to be a  Chingona in 10 easy steps.” One of the steps rings true about Frida Kahlo’s life: 

Depression has a purpose if you use it before it uses you. Compost it through art

Frida Kahlo encountered much suffering in her life. The polio she contracted at age six left her right leg thinner than the other, a bus accident resulted in a broken back and a pierced abdomen resulted in subsequent miscarriages. Her husband was also tempestuous and unfaithful.


She produced 143 paintings, 55 of which are self-portraits. When asked why she painted so many self-portraits, Frida replied: “Because I am so often alone….because I am the subject I know best.” This video, from the History Channel, gives a view of Frida’s life:

This visceral poem is one of my favorites:

MEMORY
I had swayed. Nothing else. But suddenly I knew
In the depth of my silence
He was following me. Like my shadow, blameless and light
In the night, a song sobbed…
The Indians lengthened, winding, through the alleys of the town.
A harp and a jacaranda were the music, and the smiling dark-skinned girls
Were the happiness
In the background, behind the “Zócalo,” the river shined
and darkened, like
the moments of my life.
He followed me.
I ended up crying, isolated in the porch of the parish church,
protected by my bolita shawl, drenched with my tears.
—-
Reproduced in The Letters of Frida Kahlo: Cartas Apasionadas, ed. and trans. Martha Zamora, San Francisco: Chronicle Books, p. 9. 
Today, more than half a century after her death, her paintings fetch more money than any other female artist.  Felicidades to a gran chingona, La Frida.
Now go out and live like a chingona.