History Letter | Frida Kahlo

The third letter in our series is from Frida Kahlo, an astonishing artist from Mexico. She accidentally become one of my heroes. I didn’t know much about her personal life, although I had some familiarity with her work — but then she began haunting me and I had no choice but to become her admirer. You can read that story HERE. As you can tell, no list of favorite famous women of history would be complete without a letter from Frida. — Granny Bunny

Dear Ada,

I am known as Frida Kahlo but my actual name is much longer: Magdalena Carmen Frida Kahlo Calder. I was born over a hundred years ago on July 6, 1907. My mom, Matilde was Mexican and my father Wilhelm was German. My parents had four daughters. I was the third.

I lived with my family in a beautiful home in Mexico called Casa Azul, which means Blue House in Spanish.

When I was six years old, I got a disease called polio, and had to stay in bed for almost a year. Polio damaged my right leg and foot and I limped for the rest of my life — but I didn’t let that stop me. I still played lots of sports like swimming and soccer. I also did something girls didn’t do back in those times, I learned boxing and wrestling, which were considered boys’ sports.

When I was 15 years old, I went to a very famous school in Mexico called the National Preparatory School. It was an all-boys school up until that year. This is where I first met Diego when he was painting a mural for our school. I will tell you about him later. (He is the boy I later married).

When I was 18, I was riding a bus that was in a horrible accident. The bus was mangled and the metal pole stabbed through the middle of my body and I almost died. I had all sorts of broken and crushed bones too. Healing from that took a really long time and I had to spend almost two years in bed again.

While I was healing, my parents didn’t want me to get too bored so they gave me some art supplies and a mirror. This is when I first started to paint portraits of myself because that was one of the only things I could see from my bedroom.

Two years later, I was finally able to get out of bed and back to life. I got involved with politics for the first time and became a communist. I also got reacquainted with Diego and we now had painting in common. We were married two years later.

People thought we were an odd couple. I was very small and weighted less than a hundred pounds. He was over six feet tall and weighed over 300 pounds. He was also old enough to be my father, 21 years older than me. But I didn’t care because I loved him.

We moved to the United States two years later where Diego had some painting commissions of murals to complete. Americans thought I was strange because I wore colorful long skirts, and fancy flowered headpieces. To me it was my normal Mexican clothes. After about two years, I was so homesick for Mexico, we moved back.

Diego and I tried to have children several times, but I would always miscarry. The doctors finally told me because of the bus accident crushing my pelvis, I could not have children. I also was very sick off and on for the rest of my life.

It was very hard for Diego and me to stay happily married. He broke my heart. I broke his heart. We were not always faithful. We broke up several times, but always seemed to find our way back to each other.

A lot of my most famous paintings were done during my times of great sadness, sickness and both physical and emotional suffering. My damaged spine caused excruciating pain. I even had to have half of one of my legs amputated, but still I kept protesting for justice in Mexico. I also kept painting despite my failing body. Once I had to travel to one of my art exhibitions by ambulance and lay on a bed through the whole opening celebration. No matter how tired or how much pain I was in, I would not give up trying.

I lived in my family home, Casa Azul, for most of my life. I loved the gardens. Flowers were an important part of my life and my art. Over sixty years ago, my home was opened to the public as a museum showing my art and how I lived. There was even a movie made about my life. One of the reason I think I am so popular is because I overcame so many challenges and still found much beauty in the world. Also, because I didn’t let being a woman hold me back in the world.

I hope you overcome the challenges in your life, and also find beauty in the world. I am so proud of the person you will be and the things you will do, Ada. Don’t let anything hold you back. And don’t hold yourself back.

Don’t give up,
Frida Kahlo

THE FRIDA KAHLO CHALLENGES

Try one or do them all if you can.

Take a self-portrait. Use it as the center of a collage about your life or your dreams.
Create your “Frida Kahlo outfit” using color, patterns, flowers, and a headpiece.
Think of a Spanish name for your house (remember mine is Casa Azul).
Find a way to go around or go through one of obstacles in your life. Keep trying.