Los Gatos Celebrates Frida Kahlo

Galeria Arte in Los Gatos on Saturday evening hosted "La Friducha," a celebration of the late Mexican artist Frida Kahlo that included poetry, music, a Frida look-alike contest and a silent auction featuring handmade filigree silver earrings.

Los Gatos Poet Laureate Parthenia Hicks was the event's MC and poets Jade Bradbury, Kelly Cressio-Moeller and Carlotta Roa read their work and spoke of Frida’s influence on their art. Shop owner Claudia Lopez sang La Llorona to guitarist John Vidivici’s accompaniment.

Hicks described Kahlo, who originally planned to become a doctor, as a survivor and an icon to women all over the world.

Kahlo, who died July 13, 1954, suffered a harsh street car accident at age 18 that resulted in more than 30 operations and a lifetime of severe pain, Hicks said about the famous painter.

Still, she painted mostly self-portraits, or autorretratos and still life and “lived the hand she was dealt” with passion, turning her suffering into art, Hicks noted.

She quoted Kahlo as stating: "I paint myself because I am so often alone and because I am the subject I know best."

Donations were taken for a no-kill animal shelter in Guatemala, supported by a percentage of sales from Galeria Arte.

Lopez, born in Guatemala, purchases work directly from artists and families who, she says, are “artists out of necessity” and often must borrow to purchase the materials needed for their work and are then in debt to the upscale shops that commission the work.

The shop owner said she sees her purchases as not just bringing beautiful work out of a village and into her shop, but as helping a family survive.