Frida Khalo

My library has a copy of "The Diary of Frida Kahlo" -- color printed scanned images of her visual journals -- it is truly a gift. You can see it for free online here www.scribd.com/doc/9067018/The-Diary-of-Frida-Kahlo-An-Intimate-SelfPortrait

I have not read all of the material, and I am still a bit naïve on the subject of the Mexican revolution, but this book was especially significant to me in contemplation of pain, living with it myself and to fathom the pain of others (I was at the time training to care for a paraplegic fellow).

This passage from the introduction:

Yet the city she both loved and feared struck at her without pity, In September of 1925 a streetcar crashed into the fragile bus she was riding, broke her spinal column, her collarbone, her ribs, her pelvis. Her already withered leg now suffered eleven fractures. Her left shoulder was now forever out of joint, one of her feet crushed. A handrail crashed into her back and came out through her vagina. At the same time, the impact of the crash left Frida naked and bloodied, but covered withgold dust. Despoiled of her clothes, showered by a broken packet of powdered gold carried by an artisan: will there ever be a more terrible and beautiful portrait of Frida than this one? Would she ever paint herself -- or could she paint herself other than -- as this "terrible beauty, changed utterly"?


And this is why I say her mere existence is a masterpiece. It puts the portraits into perspective for me.