Ask Dr. Ding

Those of you few who knew Dr. Ding when she was but a mere shrinklette in short pants will recall my 1990s-era fascination with the art and life of Frida Kahlo. I was so taken with her mustachioed self-portraiture that I bought every book about her work I could get my pre-Starbucks-stained hands on. I found her artwork at once mystically compelling, intensely personal, unflinching, dramatic, bold, and utterly glamorous.

They thought I was a Surrealist, but I wasn’t. I never painted dreams. I painted my own reality.

• Quoted in Time Magazine, “Mexican Autobiography” (1953-04-27)

For years people gave me Frida switchplate covers, pins, magnets, prints, and biographies and I devoured them like neocons do natural resources; expansively, greedily, and completely without thought to issues of supply or sustainability.

Eventually, I burned out a little bit, because you can only look Frida in the eye for so long without a certain amount of spiritual discomfort setting in. After all, the woman fetishized her own pain and suffering, and much of her work is a testament to her ability to put up with an incredible amount of relationship bullshit, much of which was self-inflicted.

That armchair critique of course is offered from the fairly irrelevant sociocultural standpoint of a feminist honky headshrinker living in the 21st century with a penchant for satire, sarcasm and probably lots of other things that start with an “s” — all of which which can be safely dispensed without fear of political retribution or professional reprisal. Frida did not have those priviliges, and was poorly understood and often unappreciated in her own time.

The photograph is from a Frida Kahlo lookalike contest, and you can check out some really neat pics from it here by stephan-zielinski.com. You can read more about Frida and her life here. The site oceansbridge.com features a selection of her paintings.

Thanks to Dave

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p.s. I’m fairly certain that the person third from the left is a dude, which I find absolutely delightful. This world sorely needs more outsiders, more clowns, more holy weirdness, more mystery, more dudes in drag.