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Pieces of Frida - 'Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up' at the V&A - Part 2 of 2

23/6/2018

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The Calderón González family inscribed ‘Mother (Oaxaca) Matilde Calderón age 7 1890’ Ricardo Ayluardo. Frida’s mother’s family in a mix of European and Tehuana dress. The Vincente Wolf Collection. (My photo of photo)
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The Kahlo Calderón family, Guillermo Kahlo, 7 February 1926, Coyoacán, Mexico. Gender-fluid Frida, possibly wearing a suit belonging to her father. Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. (My photo of photo)
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Frida Kahlo with family members, Guillermo Kahlo, 2 November 1926, Coyoacán, Mexico. Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. (My photo of photo)
Seventy five years after her death, fourteen years after her personal belongings were rediscovered, this exhibition is a rediscovery of - a reintroduction to - Frida Kahlo. Co-curated by Circe Henestrosa* and Claire Wilcox, it’s a moving, haunting, intimate experience – even with other people around; the (tonal?) soundtrack adds to that feeling. Film footage shows a vivacious Kahlo with Rivera, and provides glimpses of the Mexico they lived in. As you progress through the rooms you are increasingly immersed in her world, culminating in the room with her outfits, which feels almost like entering a shrine – complete with grand entrance. The busts displaying her jewellery echo the bandage textures of her plaster corsets. The experience is beautiful, sensual, playful, unsettling, inspiring; layers and facets of Frida Kahlo in three dimensions.

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Display homage to 'The Two Fridas'. Left: silk velvet cape with pointed tails (early 1900s), and silk skirt; right: Tehuana outfit.
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Corridor to the room of Frida's outfits.

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‘Self-Portrait as a Tehuana’ Frida Kahlo, 1943. The Jacques and Natalia Gelman collection of 20th Century Mexican Art and the Vergel collection. (My photo of painting)
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Side back view of huipil grande/resplandor.
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Resplandor/huipil grande (ceremonial lace headdress) and skirt.

‘I paint myself because I am so often alone.’

You can’t separate Frida Kahlo’s art from her appearance – not least because she painted self-portraits – her appearance and her art brought together and reflected all the influences in her life in her own unique style. She wasn’t just a muse to herself, as can be seen from the photographs taken of her during her life by her father, friends and lovers. She’s still a muse, her image instantly recognisable, and endlessly reproduced, reworked and experimented with by others. Even now she seems so modern – her gender-fluidity, her frankness about her personal life and state of being. I keep wondering what she’d have made of Instagram had she been alive today – would she have thought it was too commercial, or would she have created her own political memes, posted outfit inspirations and choices, shown works in progress?  


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Cotton huipil with machine-embroidered chain stitch; printed cotton skirt with embroidery and holán. Ensemble from the Isthmus of Tehuantepec. Photograph Javier Hinojosa. © Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Archives, Banco de México, Fiduciary of the Trust of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums.
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Frida on the bench, 1939, photograph by Nickolas Muray © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives.

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Embroidered huipil; embroidered enagua; holán. Cotton velvet huipil; enagua; holán.
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Fringed magenta rebozo (seen in Nickolas Muray’s photographs of Frida); brocaded cotton huipil; silk skirt. Embroidered huipil; silk skirt; holán. Striped rebozo (rectangular shawl); silk skirt with panel of Chinese embroidery; holán.
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Polka dot huipil; embroidered enagua (skirt); holán. Puebla blouses with enagua and rabona skirts, Blouse on left has panel of glass beads – such pieces are often heirlooms. Outfit on right features rebozo.

‘I must have full skirts and long, now that my sick leg is so ugly.’

The Tehuana dress that Frida Kahlo began wearing in her twenties was for her a combination of camouflage and cultural pride. The long, wide, ruffled skirts hid the leg that had been affected by polio, and the square-cut huipil tops were comfortable to wear over her orthopaedic corsets. She mixed and matched Tehuana pieces with European, sometimes adding elements of Chinese embroidery, and finished with torzales (long gold chains), necklaces of Mexican silver, pre-Columbian jade beads, and her hair adorned with bright wool and flowers. Her appearance combined past and present in a way that has become almost timeless. It is extraordinary to see these pieces in real life, shown next to the photographs and paintings they appear in. These are clothes that she lived in – you can see stains, a speck of paint, fabric worn thin – the working wardrobe of a remarkable woman.

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Detail of holán (ruffle/flounce) with worn patch.
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Detail of holán with two layers in different patterns.
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Detail of satin rabona (skirt)

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Kahlo’s sewing box and threads, and a rag doll probably made by her.
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Detail of stained silk skirt with woven velvet flowers and pleated hem.
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Pre-Columbian jade beads – including a carved fist – probably strung by Frida Kahlo.

I’ve seen this twice now and it’s still rather overwhelming; I’ll be going back again later in the year because I don’t feel I’ve finished with this exhibition yet! Rediscover the woman behind the icon; see this exhibition!

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, 16 June – 4 November 2018. Sponsored by Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, Aeromexico, Art  Mentor Foundation Lucerne and GRoW @ Anneberg.


www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-making-her-self-up

*Circe Henestrosa  also curated ‘Appearances Can Be Deceiving:
The dresses of Frida Kahlo’ at Museo Frida Kahlo in 2012:
www.museofridakahlo.org.mx/esp/1/exposiciones/los-vestidos-de-frida-kahlo




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Pieces of Frida - 'Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up' at the V&A - Part 1 of 2

18/6/2018

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Frida, 15 June 1919, by Guillermo Kahlo, 15 June 1919. Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. (my photo of photo)
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Frida Kahlo, c.1926. Museo Frida Kahlo. © Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Archives, Banco de México, Fiduciary of the Trust of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums.
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Frida Kahlo in blue satin blouse, 1939, photograph by Nickolas Muray © Nickolas Muray Photo Archives.
'I suffered two grave accidents in my life. One in which a streetcar knocked me down… The other is Diego.’ Frida Kahlo, 1951

After Frida Kahlo died in 1954 her husband, Diego Rivera, had her clothes, jewellery, makeup, photographs, letters and other personal possessions sealed inside the bathroom of Frida’s home, the Casa Azul (Blue House).  In 2004, half a century later, the room was opened, and cataloguing and conservation began.  In the decades since her death Kahlo has been recognised as an important artist in her own right, not just an appendage to Rivera, and has become a global icon. The V&A’s exhibition, curated by Circe Henestrosa* and Claire Wilcox, is a fascinating and moving insight into her life and style.


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Wedding Portrait of Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo, 1929 by Victor Reyes. Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. She's wearing a rebozo, a traditional Mexican shawl. (My photo of photo)
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Revlon compact and powderpuff with blusher in 'Clear Red' and Revlon lipstick in 'Everything's Rosy'; emery boards and eyebrow pencil in 'Ebony'. Before 1954. Photograph Javier Hinojosa. © Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Archives, Banco de México, Fiduciary of the Trust of the Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums.

‘They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.’ Frida Kahlo, 1953

Used to sitting for her photographer father, Frida became her own muse.  Her art was her life and her life was her art. Her pride in her cultural identity, her injuries, her inability to have children, her communism, her problematic marriage, her sense of fun – all are expressed in her work and in this show. Frida shocked people, she challenged expectations, and she lived her life in glorious colour and texture, with an earthy realness.


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Four poster bed-style display case containing plaster corsets.
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'Appearances can be deceiving', Frida Kahlo, 1944-54. Charcoal and coloured pencil on paper. Banco de México Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museums Trust. (my photo of drawing). Frida illustrating Tehuana dress as a disguise and distraction from her infirmities.
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Frida Kahlo at the American British Cowdray (ABC) Hospital. Juan Guzmán, 1951. ©Juan Guzmán. Courtesy of Throckmorton Fine Art. (My photo of photo). Using a hand mirror to paint her plaster corset.

‘I am not sick, I am broken. But I am happy to be alive as long as I can paint.’ Frida Kahlo, 1953

Kahlo lived with disability for most of her life, first as a result of polio when she was six, then from the bus accident when she was 18. It’s one thing to know that, but another thing to see the three dimensional evidence of it up close. In one dreamily-eerie room her orthopaedic corsets and built-up boots are displayed in cases resembling the four poster bed she spent so much time immobilised in. It makes this woman’s body of work and passion for life even more extraordinary. Her paintings are commemorations of what her body and soul have been through, and these items add even more layers to them.

She suffered pain, indignity and heartbreak and she turned it into art.

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Plaster corset with a painting of her 'broken column' spine, 1944.
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Front half of plaster corset with holes in - possibly for ventilation, the large hole is possibly a reference to the near-fatal miscarriage Kahlo suffered in 1932.
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Orthopaedic corset, fabric-covered steel, 1944. Possibly the one shown in her painting 'The Broken Column', 1944.

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Ankle boots, one with a built-up heel, 1948-52. Due to polio, Frida's right leg was shorter than her left.
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Prosthetic leg with lace-up boots, 1953-4. Red leather with Chinese silk panels, and bells. Frida's right leg - damaged by polio, then sustaining a fracture to the foot in the bus crash - had to be amputated below the knee in 1953.
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Detail of Kahlo's red leather boots.

I don’t think a single visit is enough to process all that’s in this exhibition; if possible, go and see it, buy the (excellent) exhibition catalogue and have a good perusal, then go back and see the exhibition again. I’m going back this week – I’d already booked my ticket before I went to the preview – I’m a Frida fan and a textiles fan, and this exhibition is hugely satisfying for both!

Frida Kahlo: Making Her Self Up, 16 June – 4 November 2018.
Sponsored by Grosvenor Britain & Ireland, Aeromexico, Art  Mentor Foundation Lucerne and GRoW @ Anneberg.


www.vam.ac.uk/exhibitions/frida-kahlo-making-her-self-up

*Circe Henestrosa  also curated ‘Appearances Can Be Deceiving: The dresses of Frida Kahlo’ at Museo Frida Kahlo in 2012:
www.museofridakahlo.org.mx/esp/1/exposiciones/los-vestidos-de-frida-kahlo

Part 2 coming later this week.


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100 Years, 100 Banners:  Making a Suffragette Banner for the W.I. (Part 2 of 2)

7/6/2018

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We’d made our banner, so what next?  First up was Care International’s  March4Women www.careinternational.org.uk/march4women on Saturday 4th March.  Kate and Esmé, two of my fellow Field Dames banner makers, had collected the poles our banner was to hang from, and we gathered with the rest of the 100 Banners near Parliament Square.  That was the first chance we’d really had to see the range of banners that had been produced (though we’d seen some on Twitter and Instagram), and a chance for photographs and mingling before the march.  Whenever I’ve been on a march there has always been a lot of waiting around, and this one was no exception. Eventually we were led around the back of Westminster Abbey to join up with the rear of the procession, and made stop-start-stop-start progress to Trafalgar Square, where the rally was being held.  I couldn’t carry the banner – I have M.E/Chronic  Fatigue Syndrome, and use a walking stick – but my Mum (also member of Field dames) and I walked along with Esmé and Kate.  It was rather a windy day, and the ribbon loops at the bottom of our banner proved very useful finger-holds to prevent it billowing too much!  Once at the square I’m afraid we didn’t linger long - I was exhausted, Esmé had things to do, and Kate was in the middle of Lambing Season (yes, really!); my mother and I were also the only two Field dames who could make it to the next ‘100 Banners’ event, and I needed to be in a semi-fit state for that.

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Esmé and me at March4Women Photo by Kate McGeevor
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Esmé and Kate at March4Women
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Some of the 100 banners gathering at March4Women
On Thursday 8th March, International Women’s Day, the project participants gathered at the Royal Albert Hall to be reunited with our banners (which had been handed in after March4Women).  First we shuffled in to claim our banners, then we arranged ourselves on the Hall steps for a photo.  Mum and I had borrowed a member from another banner group to help with wrangling ours, so I joined various other people standing in the middle of the road taking photos. This done, we shuffled back into the Hall for tea, coffee and talks from Elizabeth Crawford, the historical consultant to ‘100 Banners’, and Suzanne Keyte, the archivist at the Royal Albert Hall.

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Banners on the steps of the Royal Albert Hall
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100 Banners photo session in front of the Royal Albert Hall
The Royal Albert Hall played a significant role in the campaign for Women’s Suffrage; at least 25 Suffrage rallies were held there – both Suffragist and Suffragette. In 1908 the hire cost was £150, and £7,000 was raised at the first meeting held there – women donated jewellery as well as money to the cause. Nowadays full capacity is about 5,000 people, but the Suffrage rallies were attended by between 8,000 – 10,000 a time. At first the RAH was very tolerant, but in 1912 the Suffragettes were informed that they could no longer book the Hall unless they took out a Lloyds of London insurance policy for £10,000! In 1913, two days after the death of Emily Wilding Davison, the Suffragettes were banned from the Royal Albert Hall. In 1918 Emmeline Pankhurst was allowed back to celebrate (some) women at last being granted the right to vote.

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After refreshments and history there was a banner procession to Kensington Palace. I joined Alison (from Digital Drama), and two other WI members who also had mobility issues, in a cab, and we met up everyone else behind the statue of Queen Victoria for another photo opportunity.  Field Dames was at the front  by (dubious) virtue of the poles having fallen off en route – a very common occurrence for the banners at this event and at March4Women!  After packing up the banners we were then offered more refreshments, and free entry to the Palace.

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'Women Unite!' front and centre of the group shot at Kensington Palace
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Wider group shot of the 100 Banners at Kensington Palace
The banners made two more stops.  They were hung above the stage at the Royal Festival Hall for Mirth Control at the WOW Festival, and are currently part of an exhibition at the London School of Economics:  www.lse.ac.uk/library/exhibitions  . There are lots of Suffrage Centenary events being held this year in galleries, museums etc. – many stories to hear, and many women to be grateful to; I am proud to have been a part of the tributes to them.

More information:
www.digitaldrama.org/project/100-banners/
Banner photos and information:  
http://www.digitaldrama.org/100-banners-images/

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100 Years, 100 Banners:  Making a Suffragette Banner for the W.I. (Part 1 of 2)

4/6/2018

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I’d only been a member of the Women’s Institute for about half an hour when I volunteered to help make a Suffragette banner; it was part of a project called ‘100 Banners’ organised by Digital Drama
www.digitaldrama.org/100-banners/ to mark 100 years since women were first allowed to vote. 2018 is the Centenary of the Representation of the People Act, which granted the vote to property-owning women over the age of thirty - it would be another ten years before women achieved voting parity with men.  ‘100 Banners' was/is ‘an artistic response to the campaigns run by Suffragettes and Suffragists in their ambition to achieve women’s equal voting rights’; participants included assorted London museums  as well as other WI groups.  I’d grown up with an awareness of how hard it was for women to gain the right to vote, and how important it is for us to use it, so I was very excited about being involved with commemorating and celebrating such a milestone.   


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Early ideas and inspiration for banner
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Banner ideas and inspirations including a reproduction Women's Social and Political Union (WSPU) - Suffragette badge from the Museum of London

A WhatsApp group was created for the banner volunteers, and we began sharing ideas and inspirations, including original Suffrage banners from the collection in the Women's Library at the London School of Economics.  I started off thinking of something quite traditional – oak leaves reflecting the semi-rural nature of Enfield at the time of the Representation of the People Act.  As people got more involved we moved away from that, and I took inspiration from a silhouette one of our group had posted on our banner group WhatsApp thread.  I liked the idea of ‘ribbons’ forming outlines of faces in the Suffragette colours of purple, white and green; it was important to me to honour the women who had been imprisoned, gone on hunger strike and endured so much else to obtain the vote.  Millicent Fawcett’s Suffragists (the law-abiding side of the Women’s Suffrage movement) and Emmeline Pankhurst’s Suffragettes (the militant side) both deserve our gratitude and admiration, but the Suffragette colours are so iconic that it felt wrong not to use them (plus purple is my favourite colour!).

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Early version of 'Women Unite!' banner by Kate McGeevor
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Later version of 'Women Unite!' banner by Kate McGeevor

Our banner ended up being a mix of traditional and not so traditional!  A design meeting led to a sort of constructivist element.  We wanted to keep it fairly simple and striking, with a message that was as relevant today as it was to those who campaigned for the vote 100 years ago, especially in the light of ‘Me Too’, ‘Time’s Up’, the BBC pay issue etc.  We chose ‘Women Unite’ because to really make change happen people need to come together and take action to get things done and to challenge injustice and inequality.  An early idea for a slogan was 'Women! Raise Your Voices! - highlighting the need to speak up about issues that affect us - hence the speech bubble.  The purple, white and green colour scheme also helped us make it about ALL women, regardless of race, religion or sexuality – women uniting regardless of things that might be used to divide us.  The three silhouettes represent the original suffrage campaigners, the women who worked in the factories and on the land during WWII, and women today; the struggle continues, and there’s still a lot to be done.  The type faces are retro – another homage to the women who paved the way and achieved so much, including later 20th century feminists.   Continuing the theme of unity, it felt important to stress our own identity as a WI, and Field Dames’ colour is turquoise; the colour went really well with the Suffragette colours.  Using a silvery grey instead of white made it a bit less stark and a bit more sparkly!

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Fabric swatches for banner
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Speech bubble pieces cut out and placed
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Placing lettering on the sewn-down speech bubble

PictureFinished banner ready for action! Photo by Kate McGeevor
It wasn't an easy process.  As a designer-maker used to working on my own it was at times rather frustrating to have to take other people's opinions into account!  But the result was something that brought diverse approaches and opinions together - literally together; as with the original suffrage campaigners, we too had banner-making sessions around dining tables.  The physical act of making the banner felt like a tangible link to the women who campaigned with such dedication over a century ago. 

​(Part 2 coming on Thursday 7th June)



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    Sparkle Malarkey Spritzer is a place where I can go into more detail than on my Instagram about work in progress, current obsessions, past projects and anything else that takes my fancy.  All photos  ©Tonya Robinson unless otherwise stated.

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