painting of the month

   View at Folly Cove, Rockport, Massachusetts, 
The Artist's Garden

Ellen Day Hale (1855 - 1940)

 

(Image from www.the-athenaeum.org)

frida and salma

July 6th was the birthday of Mexican artist Frida Kahlo (July 6, 1907 - July 13. 1954), whose unique talent and celebrated yet troubled life became the subject of the 2002 biopic Frida.  Directed by Julie Taymor and starring Salma Hayek as Kahlo, Frida won two Academy Awards and was generally praised by critics -- particularly for Hayek's interpretation of Kahlo's complex character.  This month's American Airlines' Spanish language magazine Nexos has a spotlight piece on Salma Hayek, in which she reflects upon Frida Kahlo and how though the artist wasn't a conventional beauty, she was nonetheless charismatically and singularly beautiful.  That despite her being an invalid and having what might be perceived as less than perfect features ("tenía una ceja" or a unibrow, and "un poco de bigote" or a bit of a moustache), she was confident and brave and always her own person.  She also embraced her cultural heritage proudly in her personal style and in her vivid paintings. "Como ella no hay dos," Salma concludes. "Y para mí siempre fue hermosa."

I used to think I was the strangest person in the world but then I thought 

there are so many people in the world, there must be someone
just like me who feels bizarre and flawed in the same ways I do.  
-- Frida Kahlo

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Pictured:  Frida Kahlo; Salma Hayek in Frida; and The Two Fridas -- Frida Kahlo, 1939