Happy Birthday Frida!

A while back i did some paintings on coffee filters and made bookmarks of them for an artist trade i did in 2008 with two other artists. Although i had Frida on my mind, as i worked i thought the line up of the three of them reminded me of the Supremes...."Stop in the name of art!" i sang as i finished  these tiny treasures. 

The back shows the quilting through the bookmarks as the bottom layer is fabric . i used colored pencils to bring out the design. Leaf charms are also coffee filters painted and quilted

 and beaded on ribbons to complete the bookmarks. 

i usually write on the back of the bookmarks...."go read in the shade!!!"

Today is Frida Kahlo's birthday.

She is one of my favorite artist's. She lived a colorful life and is a part of history.

Today the Writer's Almanac posted:

Today is the birthday of Frida Kahlo, born in Coyoacán, just outside Mexico City (1907). She was born in her parents' home, La Casa Azul - the Blue House.

When Kahlo was 18, the bus she was riding collided with a streetcar. Her collarbone, spine, and pelvis were fractured. She was bedridden for several months, and it was during this time that she first took up painting. Her mother rigged up an easel that would fit over the bed, and, using a mirror, she painted her first of 55 self-portraits. She showed her early efforts to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, who encouraged her to keep at it.

Kahlo said: "There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego. Diego was by far the worst." She first met the painter Diego Rivera in 1923, when she was 15. He had been commissioned to paint a mural at her school, and she would watch him work for hours. In 1929 they were married. Rivera was notoriously unfaithful and even had an affair with Kahlo's sister Cristina. The couple divorced in 1939, but they remarried soon afterward and remained together until Kahlo's death. They led largely separate lives, and both artists had affairs throughout their marriage.

Kahlo's work was championed by surrealist André Breton and painter Marcel Duchamp, who arranged exhibitions of her paintings, which often combine brilliant colors and striking images from Mexican folk art. She said: "[Critics] thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn't. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality."

joining up to off the wall friday

thanxs Nina!

http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/