Date: Mar.18th

Authors: Yunzhu Li, Azusa Yoneta

Course: Ideation and Prototyping | Spring 2018

Professor: Allison Berkoy

Frida Kahlo’s Creative Process Research

I. Introduction

Frida Kahlo is one of the most celebrated female artists in 20th century and is considereda cultic figure by many. Her work has been celebrated internationally as emblematic of ​ Mexican national and Indigenous traditions, and by feminists for what is seen as an uncompromising depiction of the female experience and form. Despite the fact that Kahlo mentioned “I paint my own ​ reality,” her realistic and surrealistic paintings are bolstered by her logical creative process.

This essay will focus on her creative process and how Frida Kahlo portrayed herself ​ ​ again and again, simultaneously exploring, questioning, and staging herself and her identity. Her ​ process can be divided into four steps: inspiration, collection, analysis, and interaction. In the ​ inspiration phase, we will explore subjects, culture, and skills which inspired her creative mind.

She consistently followed her curiosity and learned a plethora of different subjects throughout her life. Any knowledge in any field was beneficial to herpainting. In the collection and analysis phases, we will explain what she prepared for painting,and will not only focus on materials such as painting tools, flowers, animals and fruits, but also the concepts such as mexican culture, color symbolism, and politics. After that, we will describe the relationships with her family, friends,

lovers, husband, and other artists to explain how they interacted with each other and influenced

Frida’s creativity.

II.Inspiration Process

My Roots Mexico

Kahlo was deeply influenced by indigenous Mexican culture, which is apparent in her use of bright colors and dramatic symbolism. Frida wastruly a progressive woman for her time and was one of the few female students in a top ranked high school. She had affairs with both male and femalesand was active in politics. She never forgot to admire her roots such as Mexican indigenous culture and Pre-Columbian art. She utilized them as a way of asserting her Mexican,

Aztec heritage and as an expression of national pride. She frequently wore pre-Columbian bead necklaces, and painted herself wearing them, a further symbolic gesture that connected her to

Mexico and its past. No matter where she went, she always wore embroidered dresses, bright pink boots, and stylish eye sunglasses. Kahlo adapted the traditional clothing of women from

Mexico’s matriarchal Tehuantepec area to fit her own needs.

Inheritance from family

Frida was the third daughter of Guillermo Kahlo and Matilde Calderon. She was initially inspired from her family. Her father, Guillermo, was a professional photographer who ​ specialized in recording architectural views. He was originally from Germany and had immigrated to Mexico. He was responsible for introducing Frida to German philosophy and literature, and stimulated her interest in nature, Mexican archaeology, and ultimately art and photography. Guillermo taught her photography skills which became her foundation for painting. ​ ​

She learned how to use cameras, develop film, and how to retouch and color pictures. These experiences made a profound difference when she began to draw self-portraits. She drew very detailed paintings and applied techniques such as photo retouching. Secondly, she often accompanied Guillermo during his outdoor photo shooting. This custom was a catalyst for her interests in nature, life and universality, which appeared as themes in her artwork. Additionally, as an educated European, he owned a collection of books including Goethe, Schiller,

Schopenhauer, and Nietzsche. Obviously, this is why Frida became interested in literature and philosophy.Her mother, Matilde, was a strict Catholic She took Frida to church everyday to pray.

Therefore, Frida naturally gained knowledge and inspiration from Christianity. Frida often employed religious motifs in her paintings.

Follow my curiosity, constant inputs.

Frida had a widespread curiosity throughout her life. The depth of her artwork comes from her intelligence. Her paintings have a great number of metaphors and motifs which convey her messages. In addition to art, she was interested in politics, philosophy, literature, botany, mythology, anatomy and biology. She often applies them as motifs and themes in her art.

Regarding politics, she was very active and a member of the Communist Party of Mexico.

Although in the beginning of her career, politics had little influence on her art. During her final years, she painted few works that had strong political statements. “Marxism Will Give Health to ​ the Sick” and “Self-Portrait with Stalin” were works with an obvious Communist theme. In ​ ​ ​ addition to radical political actions, she spent hundreds of hours reading books alone. She read books covering a multitude of themes. In fact, she drew her first masterpiece “Self-Portrait in a ​

Velvet Dress” after learning about Renaissance art through reading at the hospital. Her full scale ​ career as an artist began at that moment.

Several exotic pets

Frida was also inspired by her lovely garden, Casa Azul and she had her own animal kingdom. These pets gave Frida a lot of inspiration - Carol, along with some Mexican hairless

Xoloitzcuintli, has a pair of spider monkeys called Fulang Chang and Caimito de Guayabal, which can be seen in the monkey's self portrait. She also cares about an Amazon parrot called

Bonito.

III. Collection Process ​

My private universe.

Most of artists have ateliers where they have all the materials they need to stimulate their ​ artistic minds, put them in the zone, and also make them feel relaxed. Frida’s creative universe is

Casa Azul (the Blue House), the place where she was born and also where she died. Following her marriage to Diego Rivera, Frida lived in different places in Mexico City and abroad, but always returned to her family home in Coyoacán. In her atelier, she collected every material she needed for painting and also objects that made her comfortable. Somepainting tools she utilised were pigments, watercolors, pencils, a pencil sharpener, canvas, brushes, easels, palettes, reference books and a wheelchair. Beside these materials, she also collected motifs and inspiration in Casa Azul. She owned a great number of sculptures, plants, flowers and many pets such as monkeys, dogs, birds and fawn, which she loved and often employed as motifs. For ​

example, she drew her monkey in one of her most famous works, Self Portrait with Monkeys ​ from 1943. Having your own creative space not only efficiently supports your work but also set ​ ​ you in the zone.

Gather symbolisms and create original meanings.

As expressions of the inner messages of her art, she utilized various kinds of symbolism, motifs, and metaphors. She collected traditional symbolism, and used this symbolism to organize and add original meaning to her art. We will explore the symbolism and motifs she used. First of all, she created the specific system of color symbolism she employed in her paintings. Having her own system of symbolism made the messages in her paintings clearer. Additionally, that logic made her creative mind organized enough to express her emotions and thoughts. To name a few, in her color symbolism, Green represented ‘good warm light’; Yellow represented

‘madness, sickness, fear, part of the sun and of joy’; Navy Blue referred distance, tenderness can ​ also be this blue’. Secondly, she utilized religious and old philosophical motifs including

Catholicism, and Aztec and Eastern religion. For instance, she often drew hearts in her paintings.

The bleeding heart is one of the fundamental symbols of Catholicism. The heart is also linked with Aztec ritual sacrifice. In “Memory or The Heart 1937” Kahlo painted herself with a void ​ ​ where her heart should have appeared. An oversized heart lies in the landscape beside her, creating rivers of blood. The painting has been linked with Kahlo’s discovery of Rivera’s affair with her younger sister Christina. She expressed the intensity of her pain depicting an enormous broken heart. Later on in her life, she broadened her frame of reference from Christianity and ​ ​ Aztec religion to various different religious, ideological and philosophical belief systems such as

Eastern religion. While the ideology of Marxism became increasingly important for her later on in life,her illness progressed. This was caused by a growing interest in Eastern mysticism,

Hinduism and Buddhism. She employed the symbols from Eastern religion and mysticism such as The Third Eye motif, and the Yin-Yang symbol. The word ‘Karma’ also appeared in her drawing. In addition, she employed Mexican culture such as her use of the hummingbird. In

Mexico the hummingbird is understood as a talisman bringing luck in love, however, Frida uses it as a symbol to suggest her successive experiences of loss through love. In “Self-Portrait with ​ Thorn Necklace and Hummingbird 1941,” she wears a dead hummingbird around her neck thus ​ reversing its traditional meaning to bad luck, injury and death.

C. Local Market & Garden: Fruits

Fruits and plants are always an interesting topic for Frida Kahlo to explore She used natural objects from her garden and local market to inspire her paintings and define them in her own way. She would arrange the fruits on the table by her bedside and paint. She also liked to add political meaning to her still life paintings by adding flags and inscriptions or a peace dove to send particular messages.

(The inner yard of the Casa Azul Photograph: Frida Kahlo & Diego Rivera Archive, Bank of Mexico, Fiduciary in the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum Trust)

IV. Analysis Process

I paint my own reality.

Although her paintings seem surrealistic, she declared that she only paints her own reality.

With symbols, she sublimated her sharp observation and analysis of herself, her life, emotion,

people, and the world into art. She was productive, destructive, skeptical, good at psychoanalysis, and fascinated by hallucination. As an example representative of her analytical thinking is her dualism art. Dualism, doubles, binary opposition and pairings occurred frequently in her work and underpinned the symmetrical formal structure of a number of her paintings. The most central of these was, inevitably, the partnership between herself and RiveraThis characteristic of dualism was also found in a series of universal binaries that Kahlo employed: male and female, life and death, sun and moon, night and day, body and mind, divine and mortal,

Yin and Yang. In The Two Fridas 1939, she depicted her separation and divorce from Rivera by ​ ​ painting herself twice over. On one side is the ‘Tehuana’ Frida, representing the woman that

Diego loved. On the other side is the unloved, rejected Frida, dressed in a colonial-style wedding dress. The interior of her heart is exposed and an artery drips blood into her lap; the flowers on her dress also turn to blood. And yet, however different they appear, the two ‘Fridas’ clasp hands and are connected by an artery from one heart to the other. For Kahlo, psychological, as well as physical doubling, was a recurring motif.

V. Interaction Process ​ Meeting new people and growing up

Without interacting and communicating with her friends and parents, Frida never would have had a chance to become an outstanding artist, or even a painter.

Guillermo In Frida Kahlo’s life, her father was the first and most important one who shared many things that influenced her. Guillermo Kahlo shared his fascination with the natural world with his

daughter. He also taught her how to use a camera, and how to develop and retouch photos. She had his dark eyes and his powerful intellect. He doted on her as much as his dour and ascetic personality would permit, and especially encouraged his daughter’s vibrant intellectual curiosity.

Diego Rivera（Diego Panzón） ​ How has Diego’s interaction with Frida influenced her life? Diego is the most important people in Frida’s life and her paintings. Because of him, she was able to meet more artists and politicians in Mexico at the time, and because of him, was able to move to New York and San

Francisco. Diego Rivera is a gifted painter and muralist, and was also a political activist; many of the sumptuous murals he created in Mexico and throughout the world speak of politics, history, and the workers’ struggle. Frida suffered a lot of pains from Diego’s and his presence had a profound effect on her life. They created some of Mexico's most fascinating art together and ​ grew together no matter how hard their marriage was.

Alejandro Gomez Arias

Frida met Alejandro Arias in the year of 1922 when she started classes at the National Prep

School. They fell in love for the next three years until they got into a car accident together.

Alejandro tried his best to convince doctors to help Frida. Without his persistence, Frida would never have survived.

Lev Trotsky

Lev Trotsky was an active communist sympathizer. Kahlo and Rivera befriended Leon Trotsky as he sought political sanctuary from Joseph Stalin's regime in the Soviet Union. He is also

Frida’s “RED LOVER.”.

Isamu Noguchi

Frida Kahlo and Noguchi were both popular figures on the Mexican art scene when they met. They had a brief but passionate love affair. He established himself in 1932 in New York

City primarily as a sculptor and portrait artist but is also noted for his memorials, monuments and industrial and spatial arts designs that include gardens, playgrounds, public plazas, furniture and stage sets.

Dr. Leo Eloesser

In her portrait of Dr. Leo Eloesser, Frida pays homage to a man who played an important role in her life as doctor and confidante. It was a significant relationship for Frida on many levels. He was sympathetic to her physical and emotional pain. Without Dr. Leo, she might have suffered more in life.

Andre Breton

Breton and his wife Jacqueline Lamba escaped Nazi-occupied France during World War

II and traveled to Mexico in 1938. Breton greatly admired Kahlo's work and organized several

exhibitions for her paintings. Lamba and Kahlo were close friends and are rumored to have had an affair.

VII. Reflection

The Summary of Frida’s creative process ​ Frida’s creative process reflects a creative process of making art which includes inspiration, ​ collection, analysis, and interaction. All of these steps could be learned and applied in different areas. Continuous inputs to collect inspiration is essential for any artists. After collecting motifs and symbolism, there will be more ways to express the concepts behind your art. Creating their original symbolism also makes their art unique. The more symbolism and metaphors in their art, the more insightful it becomes. When a painting is finished, it also needs astute feedback and great encouragement to measure where is is at and how it can improve. Therefore, it is also important to show your art to the public.

The Advantages of Frida’s creative process

Frida’s creative process is more logical and simple than we originally thought. Although she ​ was an extraordinary person and experienced extraordinary life events, she had logic that helped her to materialize her reality into art. Therefore, we can easily follow her creative process.

Frida’s creative process is simple for many people, and it is also the most fundamental process in art field.

Symbolism is utilized by people in different fields including art and literature. For example, in Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven,” the black bird stands for death and loss. Its universality

means it only offers the frame and anyone can add or adjust some particular meanings by themselves. It is convenient for people to extend their process make it more applicable.

Self-Portrait in a Velvet Dress Marxism Will Give Health to the Sick

Self-Portrait with Stalin Memory or The Heart 1937 ​ ​

Self-portrait with Monkeys from 1943 The Two Fridas 1939 ​

Bibliography

[1]Broude, Norma; Garrard, Mary D (1992). The Expanding Discourse: Feminism and Art History. p. 399. [2] Barson, Tanya. Dexter, Emma. Frida Kahlo, London : Tate Publishing, 2005. Print. ​ ​ ​ [3] Christina Burrus, Discoveries: Frida Kahlo, Painting Her Own Reality, London : Thames & ​ ​ ​ Hudson Ltd , 2008. Print. ​ ​ [4] Kettenmann, Andrea. Frida Kahlo 1907-1954: Pain and passion. Taschen, 2000. ​ ​ ​ [5] Rivera, Diego, and Gladys March. My art, my life: an autobiography. Dover, 1991 ​ [6] Schaefer, Claudia. Textured lives: women, art, and representation in modern Mexico. ​ University of Arizona Press, 1992. [7] Udall, Sharyn R. “Frida Kahlo’s Mexican Body: History, Identity, and Artistic Aspiration.” ​ ​ Woman’s Art Journal, 1 Oct. 2003, [8] Sample, Ian. To understand a mockingbird: specimens that sparked Darwin's theory of ​ evolution. The Guardian. 2008，www.jstor.org/stable/1358781?seq=1#page_scan_tab_contents. ​ ​ [9] “Frida Kahlo Biography.” The Biography.Com website, A&E Television Networks , 10 Feb. ​ 2018, www.biography.com/people/frida-kahlo-9359496.