Our doll club, the cloth-a-dollics are having a challenge to make a doll that is travelling. The doll should be of someone that we want to meet (past, present, or future) and going someplace that we have never been. The piece must have some sort of luggage and must incorporate the challenge fabric (mid-blue satin type of fabric that we were given).
The travelling dolls are to be displayed at the Victoria Quilt Guild's show on May 2-4th at the Pearkes Arena here in Victoria. The quilters also have a challenge that involves travelling-they are to make a travel quilted bag.
As soon as I heard about the challenge I thought of making a Frida Kahlo doll travelling to Paris to display her surreal art work. I was very pleased with the result. The doll is about 18" in height. She is saying goodbye to one of her parrots before her travels.
Frida was a remarkable women that was beset with both great pain and great joy. Frida loved to paint her face. She began seriously painting after a severe accident when she was sixteen up to her death in 1954 at the young age of 46. Frida's arresting paintings, most of them self-portraits express her pain and struggles in the surrealist style that she called "her reality".
She loved Mexico and loved the traditional Mexican folk art and the "day of the dead". This doll is based on her paintings. The hand shaped earrings she wears were given to her by Picasso. Frida loved to wear her joy of life on her body and she often wore lots of jewellery and flowers in her hair. She loved nature and animals and often painted herself with parrots and monkeys.
Notice the blue fabric that I used for the lining of her shawl (that was the challenge fabric). For her outfit I was fortunate to be given some traditional Mexican/Peruvian folk fabric by a very lovely lady named Connie.
This depicts her luggage with Mexican stickers. I burned the words "Diego Rivera the adoro" into her base. Diego was the love of her life but their relationship was very rocky as Diego could not remain faithful to Frida. Despite this, they loved each other fiercely and could not live long apart.
The next few pictures show the "day of the dead" cards (the side of playing cards) that are at the base of this piece. The Day of the Dead is celebrated in Mexico to honour the dead relatives. I picked these particular cards as Frida was born in 1907.
This card depicts the great love of Frida's life, Diego. Frida did have many lovers in her life besides Diego (including some women) but she could not live without Diego.
The back of the cards have the traditional Mexican fabric which I also used for Frida's outfit:
A view of the back of her dress showing the variety of fabrics used. Her hair was black yarn woven into braids on the top of her head:
This is a close up of her colourful shoes:
One last look at this renowned Mexican artist that achieved a global reputation. In 1983 her work was declared the property of the Mexican state.
I hope you enjoyed Frida and if you are in the Victoria area, please come to the Pearkes arena on May 2-4 to view the quilts and dolls!
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