Frida Kahlo is undeniably Mexico’s most famous and influential artist. Born just a few years before the Mexican revolution in Coyoacan, which is a neighborhood in Mexico City, where she lived a passionate, colorful life alongside painters, poets, and revolutionaries.
If we were to introduce her, we would say she is an icon of strength, a victim of love and a genius in art. Frida Kahlo changed the standards of beauty with her unibrow, her right leg that was thinner than the left one and her original Tehuana dresses.
We consider Frida Kahlo as a school of lessons, a great inspiration in life. She should be every woman’s role model, because she unintentionally proved to the world what a woman is capable of. Here are some precious lessons we can learn from her:
Embrace what makes you unique, even if it’s “out of ordinary”
Frida, with her unique signature unibrow and hairy upper lip, was not “traditionally attractive”. Still, if she was criticized for it, Frida couldn’t care less, nor did she ever make an effort changing herself to please others. Frida painted her thick brow into her own self-portraits, with the understanding that it was part of what made her “her”. She found power in radical self-acceptance, telling the world it should not dare try to change her.
Life, as painful as it is, is worth living
Frida has lived a very hard life shaped by crippling pain. At a young age, she suffered from polio, leaving one of her legs withered and stunted. Then, at the age of 18, Frida had a terrible trolley-car accident forcing her to wear a corset in order to support her spine for the rest of her life. And since that day, her life was never free from pain.
However, Frida had an infinite love for life. For years of her life she was completely confined to bed, her only real contact with the outside world was the view of her home’s courtyard, which she watched from a mirror hung on the wall above her bed, and still she did not surrender to pain or to sorrow. “I am not sick. I am broken”, she wrote in her diary. “But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.”
Life is better lived with color
Frida adored colors. Starting from her house that was an electrical royal blue, which she shared with famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Reds, oranges, yellows, and greens are found even in the saddest of her art. To the way she dressed in sparkly colored clothes and cut flowers fresh from her garden to wear in her hair. Frida’s life, no matter how painful, was lively, spirited and full of laughter and brightness. We can all learn from the way she went for beauty over sadness and color over pain.
Never say sorry for your strength
This lady was a boss. She went through so much more than any of us could possibly imagine and yet she still came out stronger.
She never stayed silent, she never worried that her strength or power or success might intimidate others nor she was demure. Frida never apologized for her strength, her art, her politics, or her sexuality, and she did not need to. She simply was who she was.
Frida taught us to love fearlessly. She taught us that pain is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to control us. She taught us to stay passionate, to keep stoking the fire that keeps life worth living.
Reference: https://www.elephantjournal.com/2015/06/10-lessons-to-learn-from-frida-kahlo/
