The Mindful Migraine

The painter Frida Kahola was born in Mexico in 1907. As a child she suffered a bout of polio which left her with a limp. Worse was to come however, and at the age of 18 she was involved in a bus accident so terrible, many onlookers thought she was dead. Frida broke bones in her arm, foot, pelvis… and spine. She was in and out of hospital, underwent multiple operations and blood transfusions, and was left bedridden for months. It was while she was immobile that she taught herself to paint.

[Image source: Frida Kahlo: The fatal accident that transformed her life and art (eluniversal.com.mx)]

The same website the photo comes from, quotes Frida as recounting the accident on the bus: “[a] handrail went through me as a sword does with a bull”… but also quotes the silver lining she took from the tragedy: “I have not died and, moreover, I have something to live for; that something is painting.”

The website goes on to explain in Frida’s words how when she returned home to bed, her mother installed a mirror on the bed canopy so that Frida could use herself as a model for her paintings. As such, the images most often associated with Frida are her self-portraits. She is almost always staring directly out of the canvas, into our soul… or her own soul reflected. Sometimes she is surrounded by monkeys or birds, sometimes flowers or thorns. Oftentimes, the paintings are saturated with bright multicolored vibrancy. Other times, there is a darkness that seems to creep in, perhaps less through the hues, and more through the elements of the surreal that she mixes with reality.

Compared to my modern Western upbringing, there were always elements to Frida’s portraits that seemed to defy conventional definitions of beauty, such as her monobrow and the 5 o’clock shadow on her upper lip. I for one, however, have always found something incredibly refreshing about her “this is me” attitude; “take it or leave it.”

So many of her paintings are an expression of her life lived with pain. The one that I wanted to share today is her work ‘The Wounded Deer’ (1946).

[Image source: The Wounded Deer, 1946 by Frida Kahlo]

According to the website the image was taken from, Frida went to New York for spinal surgery, but it was a failure. This is what she painted upon her return.

Seeing the majority of arrows in a line down her spine (and the rest in her heart), it is not hard to imagine the disappointment, fear and frustration Frida must have been feeling. The painting is filled with angular angst; the arrows, the lightning over the stormy waters, the broken branches, the stag’s antlers, even the multi-directional tree roots seem to all underscore a message of messy fatality. Arrow-struck, riddled with pain, it is impossible not to feel for Dear Frida, and yet her stoic locked-eye gaze and emotionless face seems to challenge that pity and say, “don’t you dare feel sorry for me”. Stoicism aside, St Sebastian and the notion of cruelly inflicted wounds, suffering and martyrdom still come through loud and clear.

This is the ambiguity of (dis)ability that I have spoken about before – I am suffering but I am strong, I am damaged but capable, I am tortured beyond bearing and yet I continue to endure and moreover: I am productive.

Frida’s mental and physical health issues continued throughout her life, and she was in and out of back-braces and corsets, and at the age of 46 she had her leg amputated after a failed bone graft led to gangrene. As she so often did, Frida turned her pain into art;

[Image source: ‘My disability does not define me’: The prosthetic leg of Frida Kahlo – Public History Amsterdam (uva.nl)]

But even as we applaud the quote (from the same website as the photo) – “My disability does not define me” – and rush to celebrate the artistry that arose from her misery, it is important to remember that the torment remained. The same website that the image is from includes the quote from a letter to a friend:

“They want to hurt my pride by cutting a leg off […] (damned thing, it got what it wanted in the end). I told you I’ve counted myself as incomplete for a long time, but why the f*ck does everybody else need to know about it too? Now my fragmentation will be obvious for everyone to see, for you to see…”

Frida died 6 months after the leg surgery… her fragmentation complete.

I can only imagine the amount of pain she might have been in, but still she endured… still she painted…

Pain is complicated. People are complicated. Sometimes pain turns to passion, passion to pain… we do whatever we can do.

Well done Frida, you were beyond amazing… and well done to all of you for refusing to let your disability define you… painted or not… we are all more than our pain.

Take care, Linda x