“Frida” takes the stage at Ballet Arizona this weekend. It’s the U.S. debut of the show, which tells the story of the famed painter’s life through dance.
It's further proof that Frida has become the seminal icon of women in art — a well-earned honor, according to Carmen Guerrero, a longtime artist and arts administrator in the Valley and executive director of the Cultural Coalition.
Guerrero has been a part of many organizations celebrating Frida, from the Phoenix Fridas to the Fabulous Fridas. Guerrero joined The Show to discuss how there’s a reason Frida is close to her heart.
Full conversation
LAUREN GILGER: Let me begin with a little bit about your own personal connection to Frida and why you've appreciated and loved and celebrated her work so much here? Where did that begin for you?
CARMEN GUERRERO: It began the first time I went to Mexico, and I met my boyfriend, Zarko. And he had it on his agenda he was going to visit Diego Rivera's studio. So I tagged along with him. And even though Diego Rivera was very impressive, very big, it was like white marble and huge. I was really taken by his wife's little house, Frida’s studio, right there. And I became immediately attracted to her, her cuteness and her attention to detail in what she was doing.
So that was before Hayden Herrera came up with a seminal book about her, "Frida," which was huge. It was like three, 400 pages, you know, detailing everything. It was the first time I also saw homages to Frida in San Francisco, the women, the mujeres muralistas. They were doing murals admission.
They also would have a party, and everybody would wear flowers in their head, you know, link their eyebrows and be Frida. So that's where my love for her, my admiration for her, started.
GILGER: You created the Phoenix Fridas, right? Like you have created organizations, groups, events around Frida over the years. Tell us about that.
GUERRERO: Kathy Murillo, the Crafty Chica, she called me one day because she was going to all these craft fairs all over the United States. And say, everybody has a group with a cute name, like the Texas Tornado girls, you know, something like New York, something. And she goes, I want to start a group called Phoenix Frida’s, and I said, count me in.
So we started in 2003 and for many years, we were doing her birthday celebration at the library, and we would pack that library in the middle of the heat in the summer. July 6 is her birthday. And we'd have like music. We'd have a whole exhibition. We had 10 Phoenix Fridas.
They were all artists, visual artists, and we'd have kids activities. We had music, we had ballet, and the older kids would come with a little eyebrows and put flowers. So we started a trend. Then when the pandemic hit, we couldn't really have those things anymore. So that's when I started the Fabulous Frida.
And we're just a group of women who love to dress like her and like her, and we go to different events, like the last one we did was in Sedona for their Dia de los Muertos, and we were just parading around with a huge puppet and a puppeteer with us.
nd then four of us dressed as Frida, yeah, we couldn't even walk. Everybody wanted to take a selfie with us. So, you know, we became a thing. And I'm really happy that I pay homage to this iconic figure that has changed the world.
GILGER: It sounds like you feel very personally connected to her?
GUERRERO: I do, because I also see I travel. I'm from Brazil originally, and even in my country, they have carnival blocks dedicated to Frida. So everybody, men and women, you know, are dancing around with Frida outfits. You know, Frida puppets and Frida outfits.
I also go to Asia, and they know who she is. So she is internationally famous. She's not. And then last summer, I was in Mexico in July on the occasion of the 70th year of her death. And she was everywhere, on TV, on the radio, on these buses, they have pictures of Frida. Everybody was celebrating Frida, so I kept thinking, dear, she's more famous than La Vida de Guadalupe.
GILGER: Hard to do, but also interesting, because she was not that iconic in her own lifetime, right?
GUERRERO: No, she died young. I think she was only 52 or 53 and nobody knew her. She only had one show in Mexico, and she was so ill that they had to put her in her bed and carry the whole bed in the back of a truck to go to the Palacio de Bellas Artes that finally gave her first show.
Nobody knew her. She was so unimportant. She, you know, Diego was bigger than life, and she was just his wife, interesting, but in Europe, she was very famous. She came on the cover of Vogue, and then everybody knew her. In the United States, people know her. She had lots of friends who were influential, who were writers and photographers and documented her life.
And she was also very brave and very anarchist. She painted herself nude, yeah, she painted herself giving birth, you know, she just really shook all the norms, you know.
GILGER: So why do you think she's become such a worldwide icon, like, why is it Frida who we talk about, when we talk about great women artists?
GUERRERO: I quote Dr. Sandoval when he says that she was the capture of individualism. You know, she started the whole selfie trend because all she painted was herself. And she says, I only paint myself because I'm the person I know best. I think she brought individualism to the maximum. But she was also very strong, determined. She just kept going. You know that the disease was not going to determine who she was. The accident where she almost died was not going to mess up her life. She had more fun than everybody. She was the one who laughed the loudest, she drank the most, she smoked the most. She had a great life.
GILGER: Are there specific works of hers that you think really resonate, really show that kind of perseverance that you're talking about?
GUERRERO: Oh, the one, the Venado, the deer that she painted, the deer that's bleeding, and it has many, you know, arrows in it and wounds. And she has a beautiful face.
GILGER: It’s her face right?
GUERRERO: It’s her face. She put her face in it very stoic. Her face is not showing any emotion, like there is no pain here, you know, there is no fear, and she has just a little bit of a crying showing in her face.
But the face doesn't show anything to me. It shows her she was determined to not let the disease or whatever physical ailments she had messed up her life. And I also think that she brought like the indigeneity, because she's mixed blood, like many of us, she brought it up front and personal. She wore the outfits. She wore flowers in her hair, not just for parties. She wore it every day.
You know, she wore tons of jewelry, mostly pre-Columbian jewelry that Diego collected and gave her. She wore those with pride. You know, she wore those like, this is me. This is my culture. I think that's the gift she brings to me as an artist and also to many of my friends.
GILGER: Looking at this show debuting this weekend, and the U.S. debut of it, which celebrates her in this really unique way, as so many things have done.
What do you think about the timing of this, like as we're watching mass deportation start to play out, as we're watching fear start to bubble up within the Latino community here in Arizona in particular, what do you think this kind of tribute to the Latino community says?
GUERRERO: Well, to me, it's a testament to the beauty and strength of our culture. You know, the fact that Mexican culture is so vibrant, so alive, so colorful, so tasty, and so I feel like it's very appropriate to have this time over here now to show the beauty of our culture, you know, to share it because you cannot hoard your culture.
You need to be able to share it so people can see it. So in a sense, I feel really good that it is really showing the best we have to offer. But it is a very sad time for our community.
GILGER: Yeah, like what you say about sharing the culture and not hoarding it? Do you feel like that’s a challenge?
GUERRERO: Sometimes it is because I feel like the policies we have in place right now are already diminishing our worth. We just, you're just another immigrant kind of thing. And what do immigrants have to offer?
You know, they're the backbone of this country. You know, all those construction workers, all the people picking our food, all the people you know, working the hard dirty work are the immigrants, but they forget that those people are also part of this beautiful, vibrant culture.
