Turning Your Struggles Into A Masterpiece
Story by Dejour Sellers. Photos by collectorsweekly.com, wikipedia.com and pixgood.com.
March 26, 2015: What better role model than this—someone who can take the ugliness of a tragedy and turn it into art. Frida Kahlo is one of the world’s greatest artists and was most known for her self portraits. Her work was original and very odd, but it held strong feelings and memories. She was celebrated in Mexico City as a native artist and has been an inspiration to women worldwide.
On September 17, 1925 she was riding on a bus and got into a traffic accident where the bus collided with a trolley car. This incident resulted in extreme injuries such as a broken spinal column, a broken collarbone, broken ribs, a broken pelvis, eleven fractures in her right leg, a crushed and dislocated right foot, and a dislocated shoulder. While recovering from these injuries, Kahlo was often alone so to take up time she decided to drop the study of medicine and paint self-portraits in order to imitate the isolation and pain she felt while recovering from her injuries.
What was most inspiring about her works was that she never altered anything about herself. She was an androgynous woman with a unibrow and a slight mustache which was seen as “unlady like” in society. She also liked to wear men's clothing, smoke, drink, and use a lot of profanity. These were usually seen as more masculine traits and rebellious acts. She never identified herself as anything but an individual. She expressed both genders within herself. Her high level of self esteem plays a big role in the feminist community. When women learn about her today they seem to gain some
confidence. They see how she was brave enough to embrace herself. Although she wasn’t stereotypically the most beautiful woman in the world, she loved herself and inspired others to do the same. Frida Kahlo died from pulmonary embolism on July 13, 1954. Days before she passed she wrote in her diary “I hope the exit is joyful, and I hope never to return - Frida”
Dejour Sellers is a 12th grade scholar at Friendship Collegiate Academy.