Strung Out Episode 205: FRIDA KAHLO

Martin talks to his daughter Aine about her decision to research the artist, Frida Kahlo. 

Transcript

[00:00:00] Welcome to Strung Out, the podcast that looks at life through the lens of an artist. Your host is the artist, writer, and musician, Martin Lawrence McCormack. Now here's Marty. Hey, welcome to Strung Out. And, scooch over just a tiny tad. I have with me today, uh, I thought we would do something kind of fun. Uh, had an interesting week.

[00:00:28] in that my hard drive crashed and so, uh, trying to get elements back for the show and everything has been kind of a struggle. Um, but rather than concentrate on the news of the day, I thought we would talk with an expert on an artist from the past.

[00:00:53] So here is Anya McCormack. And, uh, I want you to talk about, you had an artist to pick at school, right? Yeah. And who was the artist that you chose? Um, I chose, I was kind of rushed about it. I was being rushed because we didn't have a lot of time to choose. Speak real loud. I was being rushed, um, so I didn't really have a lot of time to choose.

[00:01:21] So I just chose Frida Kahlo. So you just chose Frida Kahlo. Well, sometimes when you're rushed to pick something, you go with maybe what your gut wants. So what is it about Frida Kahlo that you liked? Like back then. Well, before I picked her, I knew nothing about her except that she was an artist at that time.

[00:01:57] Like, that was it. And she was a Mexican artist and she liked animals.

[00:02:12] She was born on July 6th, 1907 in La caa, Anya, you're gonna have to talk slow and loud. Okay. Frida Kalo. Her full name Frida Magdalena Kalo. Was born on July 6th, 1907 in her family house. Born of a Mexican mother and a German father. Um, a European father. In La Casa Azul. Which at the time was not blue. And?

[00:02:55] Oh. Well. When she was six, she got diagnosed with polio, which made her right leg, one leg, slightly thinner and shorter than the other, which made her have trouble doing things, but still, she could run. Then, um, After that, she got in a terrible, terrible, which probably most of you know of, called the accident.

[00:03:31] The accident, huh? So is it like, it was, what happened? Um, Frida got on a wooden bus after a day of classes, trying to become a doctor. Ahem. At. Like with her boyfriend, Gómez Arias, and like after minutes, after they just sit down, the bus crashes into a trolley going at full speed, and then she has a broken spinal column, broken ribs, 11 fractures in her leg, and a metal pole, yes a metal pole punctured through her abdomen and pelvis bones.

[00:04:14] Wow, that's uh, lucky that she didn't get killed, right? Yeah, but she was on the verge of death. She was on the verge of death, okay. Um. So then after that, she spent like several months in the Red Cross hospital, where she had many operations. And then she went home, but then had to wear a full body cast.

[00:04:43] Which he was already wearing. And stay in bed, like, the entire day for three months. Wow. But, since it was like nothing to do, there was no TV. No phones. No, like, there were books, but there, you had to like hold them up to read them if you're lying down like this all the time. Mm hmm. That makes sense. But her father bought her a special easel that she could use, and then she could paint.

[00:05:14] And so she started painting, she picked up her old childhood, um, excuse me, hobby, and, yeah. And then she kinda started her career. After that, I mean, can we do it? No, keep going. After that, in col it's like, in high school, she, She's, she didn't really mean it, but she kind of just yelled at this guy named Diego Rivera.

[00:05:51] He was a, you're a list, excuse me, I need a tissue. Okay, can you keep talking for a second? Well, Ani has to blow her nose. So, I'll tell you what, we'll take this as a break. You're listening and watching Strung Out.

[00:06:21] Hey, want to show your support of Martin's artist endeavors? Buy me a coffee is an online site that makes supporting Marty easy. In just a few taps you can make a payment of any amount and no account is needed. You can also decide to become an ongoing supporter. Go to martinmccormack. com and click on the words support Martin.

[00:06:44] Let's help Martin keep it all capital.

[00:07:09] Am I kidding? Is it just a joke? Can it be All I made was made to be broke? I'm,

[00:07:24] what is the purpose? Should I. Do I make a difference, anybody there? Whistling in the dark All I want is to leave a mark Be the race well run Oh, will I be Constantly whistling in the dark

[00:08:17] Can you tell me, do you have a clue? Are you just as lost, don't know what to do Whistling in the dark Yeah If I was a lighthouse, I wouldn't have a light Wrecking ships on the rocks while I spend the night Whistling in the dark All I want is to feel love All I need is joy Or will I be constantly whistling in the dark?

[00:09:17] When I am

[00:09:28] dead, who'll remember me? What will I leave behind, or will there just be Whistling in the dark?

[00:09:42] Who am I kidding? Is it just a joke? Can it be all I've made was made to be broke? What is the purpose? Should I even care? Do I make a difference? Anybody there? Can you tell me? Do you have a clue? Are you just as lost? Don't know what to do? If I wasn't lost, I wouldn't have a lot Wrecking ships on the rocks

[00:10:31] We're back on a very special Strung Out with my expert on Frida Kahlo. She, uh, studied Frida Kahlo. And so, uh, continue along. You said that she yelled at Diego Rivera, the famous muralist. Um, he wasn't famous yet. He was just a muralist that, he was making a mural for their school. Oh, okay. He held a fatso to him.

[00:10:57] They didn't very like him much. Okay. Then, later, he joined the Mexican Communist Party. In 1929. Or 1927, I cannot remember. Yes, 1929. Then, um She then did actually meet Diego Rivera. She wanted him to look at her art that she made and give her his strongest opinion. Then, like then, she was introduced to the communists of Mexico like the cool guys by Diego.

[00:11:44] And in 19 29. This was in 1927. Sorry, I'm messing up my facts. So, in 1929, then Diego and Frida got married. And, Um, Diego's career grew a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot. So, they traveled on a ship, from Mexico, all the way to, like, New York. Okay? And, from then on they kept traveling to different places. And they didn't even go to Mexico anymore, really.

[00:12:31] It was just always this new place, this is where we're gonna live, this new place, this is where we're gonna live. Which made Frida, like even though it was good for Diego's career, for Frida it wasn't so much. Like, she was only famous for being Diego Garcia's wife? Diego Garcia, I mean Diego Rivera's wife.

[00:12:54] Mm, yes. For only being his wife because of his murals. But she wanted to work on her own art. But like, she couldn't, she was like trapped. She was in a cage in a different world. She couldn't do anything. And so what happened? I mean, how did she, she did accomplish art eventually, right? They divorced in like 1930 something.

[00:13:17] They divorced. Okay. I didn't know they divorced. Okay. Mm-Hmm? . Alright. And then, um, she went to, she stayed in like New York or she traveled to New York there somewhere else, like in know la And she heard her first, first solo exhibit is Exhibit Thank you exhibition. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and featuring her own art and it was like her first big thing.

[00:13:47] By, um,

[00:13:54] Allerivis, that's his last name, or first name, I can't remember his second, but he took interest in her self portraits and other art. Okay, so she found somebody that found her interesting as an artist. Yeah. And that's always important, right? To have somebody that sees in somebody's art value, right? Okay.

[00:14:19] So after that Frida had the um, once in a lifetime chance to be rid of this jerk that was named Diego, the big fat toad that he was, and be her own woman. But Love made her do a stupid thing. So she remarried Oh wow. Diego. Wow. I think her mother was thinking the same thing she said at the first time. She said, It is like a dove marrying an elephant.

[00:14:55] Except Diego said, Except Frida said that Diego was more of a toad. A big, fat, miserable toad. So why did she remarry, uh, Diego Rivera? I guess love. Okay. Honestly. So she was certainly in a, uh, relationship that was tumultuous, right? Do you know what tumultuous is? Problematic. Yes. Right? Okay. They had many fights.

[00:15:24] About blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Um, oh yes. I'm just remembering facts. She quoted, um, when they divorced, That there have been two great accidents in my life. One was a trolley and the other was you, Diego. You were very five the worst. Wow. Wow. That's, uh, amazing that she said that to him when they divorced the first time.

[00:15:52] But then she turned around and married him . So what happened, um, with her and Diego, now they're married and, uh, was she an artist at this point in her own right. Um, yes, she, her, her last, this is just, I'm just jumping from here to there. Sure, that's okay. Well, her father dies. Mm hmm. In 1949, something like that, 1948.

[00:16:23] It was quite sudden and painful for Frida, since she loved her father quite dearly. And her mother died a couple of years before, so it was Kind of a big blow, sure. Yes. And So they moved back to La Casa Azul, and now they are living there, except Diego goes on. So he uses the house in America to be a studio, so like Going to Mexico, going to America.

[00:16:52] Going to Mexico, going to America. Over the course of like three months every single month. Which is probably not so bad. Oh, no. Yeah, I'm My school doesn't want any of the bad stuff, honestly. Like any of the You know, adult stuff. Sure. But um, Yes, the timeline say from the internet that Diego was quite not faithful, but also Frida was not faithful to him either.

[00:17:26] So there was many, much cheating. Much cheating going on. Yes, but um, it's just interesting thing. While Diego only cheated on Frida with a woman like her sister, which is pretty bad. Um, Diego, I mean, Frida Did not, like, she did not only do, did not only cheat on Diego with men, but also women. So that was a little bit interesting for me to learn.

[00:17:58] Yeah, there's a term for that, right? Bisexual. Bisexual, alright. Uh, so, Frida Kahlo, very complicated person, right? Um, before we take a break, I just want to ask, uh, what happened in her latter part of her life, then, with her art? Did she ever attain the status she craved as an artist? What does that mean? Was she recognized for being an artist in her own right?

[00:18:27] Um, not so much. She was, she was, but then she wasn't by some people. Mm-Hmm. . Um, like some people thought, oh my gosh, the art is beautiful. Some people were like, you have a unibrow and you have a mustache. Get outta town. You are not beautiful. Yeah. She, she was kind of proud of her facial hair, right? Yep. She embraced her masculine features and expressed herself with her own passion and, um.

[00:18:56] Yeah, that's how she used her art usually to express her pain and suffering and her passion. So yeah, it was quite a lot of things. Um, also, just before we take the break, she held her last exhibit at Julian Lev, wait, no. In Mexico by Lo Lola. I remember Lola Bravo in Mexico. Mm-Hmm. . And it was her last exhibit.

[00:19:29] And then like featuring her own art, you know? Uhhuh. . Nobody expected her to come. This is the thing. Nobody expected her to come, except she turned up in her own canopy bed. Because she could have moved her leg amputated, but she still turned up in her own canopy bed and everybody was like, wow. Wow. Pretty dramatic.

[00:19:52] So she, she was there and you have her exhibition and a canopy bed. Very, kind of reminds me of somebody like Queen Elizabeth or something. Kind of weird, you know? Don't you think that's kind of odd? I think that she was very brave. Very brave. She wasn't going to run her own exhibit without her. Okay. Well, let's take a little break and when we come back, I just want to ask very quickly what it is about her that you find interesting.

[00:20:22] important. We're watching, uh, you're watching Strung Out and you're listening to Strung Out with Anya, our expert on Frida Kahlo. We'll be right back. All right. It's an ironclad law, stronger than hay, tight rope of courage, can as it takes.

[00:20:55] Over the edge.

[00:21:03] You got me and I

[00:21:16] against the world tougher than I know your thought. You know how I feel? No.

[00:21:38] And I got you.

[00:21:50] Doesn't mean we're perfect. Been through many a game. Bear the scars of battle. Live to tell the tale. The bond we made is never finished. That's a secret too. You got me and I got you.

[00:22:31] I got your back. You got mine. We'll take the flag.

[00:22:40] It's iron.

[00:23:00] You got me and I got you.

[00:23:10] You got me. And I got you.

[00:23:49] Hello, this is Polly Chase presenting artwork by Martin McCormick. This painting, titled Dude, features a mountain range that holds a special place in Marty's heart. On the canvas, which measures 20 by 24, we see the Tetons rising in the hazy distance of a view from an abandoned dude ranch just outside Jackson Hole, Wyoming, near Marty's parents old place.

[00:24:17] The cool blues and violets of the background complement the buttery yellow foreground. These colors pass the viewer's attention back and forth along the horizontal plane, while the decaying Model T sinks into that scrubby landscape from which the majestic peaks punch upward along the vertical plane.

[00:24:40] It's a quiet yet very moving scene. Seen both artistically and emotionally. It pulls the imagination into a human story waiting to be told, one witnessed by rock that is millions of years old. To explore this painting and more of Marty's artwork, go to martin mccormick.com.

[00:25:07] Alright, and we're back talking about, uh, an artist, a famous artist. What is it that you like about our paintings? Um, I think it really shows how she expressed herself, and her passion, and how, well, it's like, they show many different things, and it really, usually is her suffering, or her passion. I know I'm saying this a lot, but like, She, it's like she kind of took her own heart and ripped it out.

[00:25:43] Took her heart out and put it out for everyone to see. Yeah. Really important as an artist, right? She didn't hide anything except for her leg. She might have been a little embarrassed that's why she wore the long skirts. So, so she showed the world through her art, um, who she was. And that she was a person that, uh, she had a lot of pain and sadness in her life, right?

[00:26:09] So that made things difficult, but she was able to, to deal with that by putting it out on her canvas, right? Painting it. What were the, her themes were very Mexican, right? Can you talk a little bit about that? Um, there was one painting. Just, this is connected to it. Where it's titled Los Dos Fridas. So the two Fridas.

[00:26:35] And it shows Frida, Frida. in her semi bright Mexican clothes than in a white European clothes and it kind of shows her torn parts between her European side and her Mexican side because Like, her European side was Germans, like white Germans, and her other side was Mexican, or Spanish, and they did not go together so well.

[00:27:04] Like, there was some things about slavery that, um, so it was, she was a little bit torn about it. And, um, she felt, like, kinda weird, because it's like Is that the painting that sticks out the most in your mind? The two Fridas? There's many paintings that stick out in my mind, and I haven't even seen them all.

[00:27:34] There's 55 self portraits, um, 100 plus pictures or paintings of friends and family, and like 12 or more sketches of people. Just different scenes in that. What is it about an artist that paints that you find most interesting? Their style of painting. Do you think that as an artist your life kind of continues on after you're finished on this planet?

[00:28:21] Oh wow, big yawn on that one guys. Yes, um, yes. Okay. I love the short answers. Well, I think we should leave it at that for this week. But there's one more thing. Oh. He made a last appearance at Guatemala to fight for Mexican rights. And then she died at age 47. And it was a little bit blurry for me to see how she died.

[00:28:53] Some people were saying it was overdose of medicine, others were saying that she just died of pain and bronchopneumonia. Um, but, she did die at age 47, which is sad. She, uh, accomplished a lot in 47 years of living, right? And she wrote in her diary, this is something like it, like, not exactly, but something.

[00:29:22] I joyfully, I joyfully await the exit and hope to never ever return. So after all of that cruel thing, all of the cruel things that fate gave her in her life, with all the pain and suffering and tears, if she wasn't born, then many Mexican, especially Mexican women artists, and women artists in general, couldn't have the The strong, brave that she had in her heart and expressed themselves and their passion.

[00:29:56] If she didn't show that men do not have rule over women. And we still have that problem today, right? Yes. We live in a world where we still have parts of the world where men. So she really was, uh, a champion, right? For women's rights. Pretty cool. I think you chose the right artist. Yes,

[00:30:29] If you hadn't chosen her, you wouldn't have been able to learn about her. Well, we hope you learned something here today too on Strung Out. I, I did. Uh, and I want to thank you Anya, uh, for doing so much research on Frida Kahlo. And, uh, you had to dress up like her for your school. And, uh, I think that's just totally cool that you got yourself so immersed into an artist and you understand.

[00:30:56] The, the meaning behind not only her work, but who she is. What she stood for and why she's such a, an important artist. So thank you guys. And, uh, we're going to be back, uh, next week, hopefully, uh, with some interviews, uh, getting everything going again. And, uh, that's it for now. Bye bye. Love that. Thank you for listening.

[00:31:22] For more information about this show or a transcript, visit martin mccormack.com. While there, sign up for our newsletter. See you next time on Strung Out

[00:31:39] So Wrong, Spain, we feel makes no sense at all. The Swan song was a part of the deal was no good call Giving out choice, giving us that.