Frida Kahlo

Hello, my name is Frida Kahlo, and I want to tell you my story. My life began on July 6, 1907, in a bright blue house called La Casa Azul in Coyoacán, a lovely part of Mexico City. My home was always buzzing with life, filled with sunshine, colorful flowers, and the chatter of my family. My father, Guillermo, was a photographer, and he taught me to look at the world with an artist’s eyes, noticing every detail, every shadow, and every light. My mother, Matilde, was strong and full of life. When I was just six years old, in 1913, I became sick with a disease called polio. It made my right leg thinner and weaker than my left. Sometimes, other children would tease me, but this challenge didn't break me. Instead, it lit a fire inside me. It made me resilient and taught me to be strong in my own unique way.

As I grew up, I had a big dream: I wanted to become a doctor. I loved science and learning how the body worked, and I wanted to help heal people. I was one of the very few girls at my prestigious school, and I studied hard every day to make my dream a reality. But in 1925, when I was eighteen, my life took a sharp, unexpected turn. I was riding a bus when it crashed with a streetcar. The accident was terrible, and I was hurt very badly. For many months, I had to lie in bed, wrapped in casts and unable to move much at all. The world I knew, full of school and friends, suddenly became very small. To help me with the boredom and sadness, my parents set up a special easel above my bed and attached a mirror to the canopy. Since I couldn't explore the world outside, I began to explore my own world. The person I saw in the mirror every day became my first and most frequent subject: myself.

Painting became my diary, my voice, and my escape. I didn't paint perfect, smiling pictures. I painted my reality. If I was in pain, you could see it in my art. If I felt joy, I painted bright colors, lively monkeys, and beautiful parrots to keep me company. A few years later, I showed my paintings to the famous artist Diego Rivera. He was a very large man with a booming voice, and he saw something special in my work. We fell in love and got married. Our life together was an adventure full of passion, art, and travel, but also heartbreak. Through it all, I painted. I was fiercely proud of my Mexican heritage, so I filled my paintings with symbols from my culture and always wore beautiful, traditional Tehuana dresses, with colorful ribbons and flowers woven into my braided hair. My clothing was another canvas, a way to express who I was to the world.

As the years went on, my health problems continued, but my spirit never faded. In 1953, I was finally given my very first solo art exhibition in Mexico. By then, I was too ill to walk or even sit up for long. But I was not going to miss my own party! I told them to bring my entire four-poster bed to the art gallery. I arrived in an ambulance and was carried in on a stretcher to my bed right in the middle of the room. I spent the evening celebrating with my friends and admirers. My life ended the next year, in 1954, but my story didn't. Looking back, I see that my life was a mix of dark and light, pain and color. I hope my story teaches you that even when you face great challenges, you can find strength. You can turn your experiences, good and bad, into something powerful and beautiful. My home, La Casa Azul, is now a museum where my art and my spirit live on for everyone to see.