Part One: THE WORK OF FEMALE ARTISTS

...and how I became aware of a connection with my own work.

A couple of years ago I had the good fortune to be in Mexico for a week on holiday and was taken to Coyoacan, the Bohemian district of Mexico City, where I visited the house of Frida Kahlo. I had been aware of Kahlo as an Artist, and liked her work. I also knew a little about her life as her work is so closely linked with the troubles and difficulties that she faced, that it is almost impossible to view her work without picking up some sense of her feelings and traumas. The visit affected me strongly as it put into context what I already knew and threw a new perspective on my own work. When she was very young, Frida Kahlo had suffered a terrible accident; a bus that she had been travelling on collided with a street car and she had almost been killed.

"A description of the wounds Frida suffered in the accident was compiled by her doctor in a clinical history years later: Fracture of the third and fourth lumbar vertebrae; pelvic fractures; fractures of the right foot; dislocation of the left elbow; deep abdominal wound produced by a metal rod entering through the genitals. Acute peritonitis; cystitis with drainage for several days"2.

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