¡Viva la Revolución!
Tattoo By Dora of Earthship Studios, 2017-2018
To explain this tattoo is to share a story (I mean what's new right!?). This story is more complicated because it involves a lifetime love affair, hero worship, and mentorship from a dead person.
Everyone know Frida Kahlo, they buy her image on shirts and household items, maybe without realizing the irony, they see her art and her clothing and maybe even her gender bending and are inspired. But not everyone meets Frida at 12 and cultivates a long term relationship with her.
My mother introduced me to Frida at 12 after another therapy session gone horribly wrong. I had felt less understood than I had ever felt before. Growing up feeling unaccepted by peers, family and our culture is nothing new to so many, and to a 12 year old little white girl that experience felt so painful and unique and like "no one would understand". My mother in her infinite wisdom shared with Frida's artwork and asked me what I thought. All I can remember is feeling so taken, like there was no breath left in my body. I wanted to be apart of that artwork, immersed in it, escaping into it. And then my mother shared the story of Frida's accident, her life long battle with her physical ailments, her life long celebration of art, sexuality, embracing being the antithesis of "Gringolandia" and her need to create a world worth living in.
And then my mother shared her own story. A story of her own physical disability and ailments, her own mental health struggles, her own hopes for what life could have been, for what life was. Her own feelings of not fitting into her family of origin and wondering where she fit in, in the world. And together Frida did something for us, she gave us strength and quiet dignity, she reminded us that different is better.
As I have grown, so has our relationship. Frida came with me across the world, guided me through an abusive relationship, gender and sexuality questions, becoming chronically ill and ultimately to being an art therapist, artist and activist. Her work and her story have continued to guide me. And now amidst a pandemic and the murder of BIPOC and trans folxs not only does her story guide me but it challenges me, my personal power and privilege and ways I can grow to be more anti-racist, better educated, a true ally. Frida reminds me, if I admire BIPOC, if I buy their art, read their books, wear their clothing, listen to their music, eat their food, then I am responsible to share those experiences. Being an ally means empowering their voices and then shutting up, sitting down, and listening. So Frida, I am listening and I hear you, I hear your words and your art and I understand. Revolution is when the powerful sit down and when those that are viewed as less powerful are given the space to show us what we have been missing all along.