Frida on my Mind

Thirty years ago, I was a broken woman. I shouldn’t have been. In 1989, I accepted an executive position in a corporate headquarters in Houston that felt like my dream job. My family and I moved into the most well-appointed home we had ever had. My kids were thriving, my marriage was happy. It should have been the beginning of a productive, well-rewarded middle-age. But instead, I got sick.

 Within a few months of arriving in Houston, I had been diagnosed with lupus (officially known as Systemic Lupus Erythematosus or SLE). Lupus is an autoimmune disease that causes the body to attack its own cells and organs. It can be life-threatening for many people and is certainly life-upending for most sufferers. Within four years, I had become so ill that I couldn’t work any longer.

 Goodbye to my highly compensated career. Goodbye to our Jenn-Air kitchen and Jacuzzi garden tub. The mortgage was too much on only one income, and I couldn’t manage the stairs anymore. We moved to a ranch-style home with a mortgage that was less than half of our dream home’s.

 Our reduced circumstances and life upheavals were incidental in a way because I was also very ill, in and out of the hospital, bedridden at times, and frequently in severe pain as my antibodies attacked my joints and muscles. I felt broken and disconnected. When people asked, “What do you do?” in casual conversation, I had no answer that I could live with. It began a period of feeling underestimated and inconsequential.

 During this low point, when I felt broken, I attended a seminar at the University of Houston titled Politics and Pain (Frida Kahlo). I’m not even sure how I happened to go to the event. I didn’t know who she was before that, but afterward her story absolutely riveted me. Frida was an artist who found her motivation following a horrific accident at the age of 17 that crippled her for life and led to her early death at 47. She lived in pain every day for 30 years and she still made art that mattered to people. Her pain fueled her art; mine, at the time, felt like it was erasing me. Frida became my inspiration and backbone.

 This weekend I had a thrilling, in-depth, all-encompassing Frida Kahlo immersion! Saturday night we attended a mixed repertory program at the Houston Ballet that included a 53-minute work titled Broken Wings, an homage to Frida, her life, and her art. Beginning in her school days and continuing through her death, the ballet depicted the milestones of her life, both grim and glorious, through dance.

 55 of Frida’s 143 paintings were self-portraits that exposed her physical pain and emotional anguish. In the performance, nine male dancers dressed to match nine of these iconic paintings, creating a tableau of her work. Other dancers embodied more motifs from her work, including skeletons, a deer, birds, and greenery. The ending brought the audience to its feet and me to tears. I don’t think a ballet has ever made me cry before, but this one was just that good.

 Coincidentally, we attended a special event at the Museum of Fine Arts Houston the next morning, hosted by Washington University, where I got my graduate degree. After a lovely brunch at Le Jardinier, a Michelin-starred restaurant at the museum, we heard a talk by John Kelly, a professor of art history and archaeology from the university, about the Frida Kahlo exhibition that the MFAH is currently featuring.

 After the meal and lecture, we walked over to see the exhibition. Wow! It was not only a retrospective of Frida Kahlo’s work, although her paintings were represented amply, but also an exploration of the impact that Frida’s work had on the rest of the artistic world. From reflections of her work in other artists’ paintings and sculptures to display cases full of Frida mementos and kitsch, to photographs of her and scholarly articles about her, the exhibition was a paean to Frida Kahlo.

 Today, I pulled out a hatbox from the closet full of my Frida memorabilia. It had been put away after flooding forced us to pack up a lot of the house. I have a 12” high doll in full Mexican peasant dress and one in the same outfit that’s about 3” tall. I have a small blank book with an iconic portrait of her on it and several cards and tiles with her paintings reproduced on them.

 I have Frida Christmas tree ornaments and I even own a lacquered matchbox—full of red-tipped matches—with her portrait on it. My bookshelves have nine tomes devoted to Frida, including a reproduction of her diary, and she’s mentioned in several other books I own about women artists. I have made art of my own that featured Frida Kahlo.

 After my immersive weekend at the ballet and art museum, plus the immersive dive back into my personal Frida Kahlo collection, I am feeling invigorated by her spirit. Despite all the odds, she made her life matter. I would like to do that, too.

 May you find your own source of inspiration and use it to make your life matter.

 Ciao