Carole Maso - Beauty is Convulsive - The Passion of Frida Kahlo

Beauty Is Convulsive is a biographical meditation on one of the twentieth century’s most compelling and famous artists, Frida Kahlo (1907–1954).

At the age of nineteen, Kahlo’s life was transformed when the bus in which she was riding was hit by a trolley car. Pierced by a steel handrail and broken in many places, she entered a long period of convalescence during which she began to paint self-portraits. In 1928, at twenty-one, she joined the Communist Party and came to know Diego Rivera. The forty-one-year-old Rivera, Mexico’s most famous painter, was impressed by the force of Kahlo’s personality and by the authenticity of her art, and the two soon married. Though they were devoted to each other, intermittent affairs on both sides, Frida’s grief over her inability to bear a child, and her frequent illnesses made the marriage tumultuous. This prose poem is typical Maso — vigorous, daring, always original. She brings together parts of Kahlo’s biography, her letters, medical documents, and her diaries with language that is often as erotic and colorful as Kahlo’s paintings.

We hope you’ll enjoy this e-book edition from Hol Art Books. Following the text, you'll find:

A biography of the author and a listing of her books

Other fictional Fridas

A social network special offer, and more

Good reading!

She draws. She draws a door — of breath — breathes on the pane the glass and draws — a door — an O spells polio. Six years old.

She draws. She dreams. Walks with her father again. River of glass. To the river of — collecting bits of this and that to examine later under the microscope. To hold. Shells and plants and stones to draw. All is

votive: vision .

Drawn to the swirling. Live your life.

And her beloved papa photographs her and she adores — makes love to the lens even then.

Live your life.

Embrace the life you’ve been given.

Your grave image. Even then. All is

Votive: desire.

And Tina Modotti will photograph you. And Lucienne Block will photograph you. Edward Weston. Nickolas Muray. Lola Alvarez Bravo.

And you make love freely to the lens and your life opens and your life widens like the river. Your grave reflection in the glass — small boats. And the air makes love to you and the heat.

Listen: the drums. And you leave the frame.

Incessant. Your life — just a girl — opening—

Adore.

She loves the sun clanging and she’s drawn. Drawn to the swirling. The way color keeps coming and going. The way color. Drawn to the longing.

Her teacher holds an orange and a flame— imagine —vastness — the planets—

She dreams the orange over — solar system — drawn — to the spinning — She stands in awe.

She draws

Each mark a door.

With her finger in the dirt she makes a three. She dreams….

You are the alegría girl, your lucky numbers are 3, 7, 9.

And I am just trying to keep up. She closes her eyes just a child and touches her dreamy thigh — before—

Before the accident.

Mischievous one. Cheeky. Cheeky one. Climbing trees. Prankster. Anarchic in the afternoon. Already her dark dares — her fierce pursuit of pleasure. Her refusal to refuse joy.

Votive: courage.

You are the alegría girl ferocious child of fire and I am standing next to your heat and light — for all these years.

Aura halo aureole

You leave the frame searching looking Fulang Chang!

Childish pranks. Monkey business. Monkeys hanging. Clinging to your neck Fulang Chang! you shout. Monkeys clinging her sexual—

Sunflower, halo, fire. Setting off firecrackers. Throwing sparklers — light, even then. Hanging from a tree upside down. The sun clanging monkeys children clinging to her neck and she’s drawn. She calls her monkey, Fulang Chang! she shouts.

Irresistible one — taking, asking, begging — looking — looking harder — watching through the window just a child. She sees her face in the glass. Draws — river of. All is

vision

The sun clanging, Fulang Chang! All is light. Drawn to the way color keeps coming and going. The way color

In the public gardens in the whirling of her — drawn.

Aura, halo Alejandro, dreamboat. Teenage Frida screaming— Ven, Alejandro, pink petals — the open fruit — giving up — soaked, juicy pulp and swoon and seed. Need and lush Ambrosia. The soft dark nub.

Votive: cup.

Oh you are a curious one.

In a knapsack Frida carried a notebook with drawings, pinned butterflies and dried flowers, colored pens and philosophy books from her father’s library.

And I am writing after her — just trying to keep up.

Elusive — fleeting beautiful one. And I am left again with everything that escapes the page—

Listen: the judgments. And you leave the frame.

In the margins of her love letters she draws a woman with a long neck, pointed chin, enormous eyes. Don’t tear her Alejandro because she is very pretty — an ideal type.

She draws a cat and laughs. Another ideal type.

Ven, Alejandro. Let’s peel, let’s peel back (24 hours of incessant drumming on Good Friday) together gently — watch as I do it — a little bit of skin, my love, my love, just — oh you are a curious one — a little — to reveal (you tease) and later to paint. Fruit spread on the earth. Dripping. Fruit now opened, peeled back beneath an open sky.

See how she—

Free. A little free.

Translucent gleaming.

Sun-drenched

Mischief maker see how she

lit by roses

Incessant dreaming

And she learns to swear. In the square on the days she skips school. Already her dark dares her pursuit of pleasure love letters

Alejandro: Answer meAnswer meAnswer meAnswer me “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “ “

Her extracted heart in her hands — her refusal to refuse pain, posing even then.

Unstoppable — ribbons of light — set me free— answer me .

And she leaves the frame.

Answer me.

The girls say they are dying in the formal European. In the corridor of rules. In the diminutives — in the diminished.

In the regulations. The girls say. Bored with their pedestals.

Their Europe of thorns and decorum. Dark courtyards and order.

Looking. Looking harder.

Watching through the window the child sees her face escape — in the glass and follows it. All is vision. Dream. She draws. Her breath on glass.

The two liked to loiter in the public gardens — drawn — to the light. Green.

Eye and dream.

Look! Oh look!

Watching him on a scaffold at the Preparatoria. Incessant painting. Drawn to the debilitating, the promise — drawn to the fat man Diego Rivera, painting in the air Creation — can you feel it —the way color — shape. Diego! Diego Rivera!

Who’s there?

She soaps the stairs. And shouting from nowhere, insolent child, watch out fat man your wife is coming! You’ll be caught, face of a dog, face of a frog (his hundred clandestine affairs) Just a girl.

My only ambition is to have a child by Diego Rivera, the painter. And I am going to tell him someday.

Frida you are crazy.