Wednesdays Are for Art

It’s the middle of the week. Many of us are trying to get over the hump. What better way to do that than to revel in the creative. So, on Wednesday’s I will be trying something new here on the old blog, I’ll be posting pics of art that inspired me or art that I am working on myself. I use that term art in the broadest sense, so this could be writing, music, dance, visual art, or anything else creative that speaks to the soul or inspires.

For today’s Wednesday art moment, we’ll be looking at a piece that I love by Frida Kahlo. This little piece of magnificence is hanging in her kitchen in her home in Coyoacan, Mexico City.

 The Blue house is visited by thousands (maybe millions) of people every year. We go for various reasons, but I went to touch something, to connect with something that had pulled me in. Kahlo’s work speaks on many different levels of what it means to be a woman, to be Mexican, to know love, to suffer, and to overcome. The caption of this painting can be translated as:

Feet, why do I want them if I have wings to fly

If you know Kahlo's story, you know that she was in a horrific accident as a young woman that caused her years of pain and limited her mobility. Kahlo did not “have feet”. She spent much of her life in bed and much of that time in pain. But dammit, she had wings. And for so many of us she has soared beyond her infirmity and beyond the chains of time and death to continue to speak to us and gift us with inspiration.

So often it is easy to fall prey to what we don’t have. I fall into that trap every week. I don’t have time. I don’t have money. I don’t have good paints. But we miss out on so many blessings with the focus is on what we don’t have, instead of what we do. I have my health. I have capable hands. I have a sound mind. My muse has not yet abandoned me. I may not have the best paints, but I have paints. 

Life is not good or bad, it is life. I am learning to see past what isn’t and into what is.