dreaming of frida

I can't remember when I first became infatuated with frida kahlo. it was later in life than most creative young women discover her I think. she was always a bit mythic to me & I was content to view her paintings from a distance, & flip through the pages of books about her in museum gift shops.

in a few weeks I'm heading to mexico city. I've wanted to visit for many years, but never found the time or the justification. this past summer I thought: I want to go to the frida kahlo museum. & scheduled the trip for that purpose. I'm excited to see her blue house & maybe feel closer to this women whose picture hangs on my wall. she's always been a symbol of permission to me. frida says: ok. now go.

now I want to know more about her. she is quite enigmatic. but the biographies I've found center her as a "married woman" & seem to gloss over her bisexuality, her politics, her contradictions. this is not uncommon in the ways we think about women artists. most often they are asked to be flat things. not allowed the flaws & problems of their male counterparts. I wonder: what will history erase of me? what will it erase of my female friends writing & painting & making art...