Artists in Residence by Melissa Wyse

Author:Melissa Wyse [Wyse, Melissa and Lewis, Kate]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Chronicle Books LLC
Published: 2020-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

During these years, Kahlo experienced increasing and painful physical challenges as the long-term effects of polio and the bus accident plagued her. She was often hospitalized or confined to her bed. She had multiple spinal surgeries, and near the end of her life, her right leg was amputated below the knee. Once again, Kahlo and Rivera modified the house, adding ramps so that Kahlo could access her second-floor bedroom and studio.

As her physical health worsened, Kahlo’s home became even more important for her as a source of creative stimulation and engagement. All her art and color and archeological artifacts connected her to key creative sources for her painting. And, as a frequent self-portraitist, she hung mirrors in strategic locations throughout her house, including one above her bed, so that she could continue to paint even when she couldn’t get up.

For all her physical pain, Kahlo’s relationship with her home is filled with joy. The repainted surfaces infused the space with bright energy and color, and with an encompassing and undulating warmth. And the house was often lively; Kahlo had numerous pets including spider monkeys, a parrot, her beloved dogs, a turtle, and a fawn. She loved to entertain and welcome guests into her house.

With its yellow floors and table, her kitchen feels particularly personal and inviting. She painted the lower portion of the walls bright blue and rimmed the contours of the carved table legs in red and green stripes. She hung bright blue and yellow Talavera tiles in the shape of a wide, generous chimney. Beside it, she spelled out her and Rivera’s names in a pattern of smaller tiles, surrounded by soft tiled swirls. She decorated the adjacent walls above the window with a tiled swag and two tile doves. Kahlo left most of her kitchenware visible, hanging wooden spoons from the wall and displaying her extensive collection of painted pottery dishes on open shelves throughout the room.

She decorated her dining room with more blue and yellow, and with masks and folk paintings. She took pleasure in setting her table for guests, covering it with woven and embroidered tablecloths she collected from all over Mexico and arranging it with fruit and flowers and pottery.

She was alert to beauty in the ordinary and embraced her experience of home with both creativity and playfulness. Alongside the decorative abundance of her cacti and orchids and lacquerware boxes, she displayed her collection of toys and dolls from around the world, which she asked friends to bring her from their travels. Yet her levity was edged with morbid humor, which we can see in the Day of the Dead skeletons she hung throughout her home, including a calavera skeleton on the canopy above her bed. She told a friend, “I think about death very often; too much.”

Kahlo’s work insistently and viscerally grapples with death and loss and pain, heredity, cultural expression, and the complex machinations of identity over time.

Kahlo’s home feels like a distinct work of art, separate from her paintings. It has

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