Today I offer you a tour of the walls of my office cubicle. A cubicle is always an interesting amalgamation of quotes, articles, and postcards — usually little reminders of what life really means, of things you might enjoy if you weren’t at work, or your own personal version of motivational posters or cynicism.
A beautiful letterpress graduation card from Hello Lucky. (Love the typography!)
A Frida Kahlo card featuring the image above, from the Frida Kahlo ArtBox.
An Edward Gorey postcard (”Donald imagined things.”)
A 2008 Frida Kahlo wall calendar.
A postcard featuring the 2006 National Poetry Month poster design. Love the poetry & graphic design combo!
The “you’re-loved self-esteemizer” availible for download as high quality pdf from Time Out New York. (Another example of great design, and very funny!)
Need a pretty Mexican Restaurant to coincide with your visit to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art? Of course you do! Xochitl is the place to go (the picture above is actually from Time Out New York Online) — especially considering it currently has a special Frida Kahlo three course meal filled with all of Frida’s favorite dishes. (Unfortunately, it’s $35 per person!) If you can’t afford that, you can purchase a single appetizer, dessert, or meal that is also included in the Frida full-course meal. For example, I recommend the $7 Sopa Azteca (tortilla soup).
I know this is an art & design site, so it’s a bit out of my realm to advertise a soup, but this soup gets design & creativity points all its own. At Xochitl the soup portion of the dish was poured out of a jug over a bowl of tortilla strips, avocado, and cheese (which delightfully melted in the warm soup).
If you aren’t in Philadelphia, (more…)
Okay, I apologize for the obsessive alliteration in my title, but the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art actually was fabulous and it’s only there until May 18th so you better run quick!
The paintings were, of course, spectacular (it was especially great to see Kahlo’s The Frame in real life because it has two layers — the painting and a frame of glass — that give the painting an effect and look impossible to see in these 2D renditions). But most exciting for me were the personal photographs of Frida Kahlo and her husband Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. The expression Frida makes in these photos — straight and stoic — is similar to the face she makes in most of her self-portraits.
“These photographs—several of which Kahlo inscribed with dedications, effaced with self-deprecating marks, or kissed, leaving a lipstick trace—pose fascinating questions about an artist who was both the consummate manufacturer of her own image and a captivating and willing photographic subject.”
The exhibit and museum aren’t cheap (you’ve got to buy tickets both to the museum & special timed tickets for the Frida exhibit itself), but if you do it right you can save a few bucks. Check out the Frida Kahlo ticketing page for information on (more…)
Check out the Frida-Inspired images above, and then dress yourself Kahlo-esque using this list of How To Dress Like Frida: (more…)
I’m so excited about my upcoming visit to the Frida Kahlo exhibit at the Philadelphia Museum of Art (it’s there until May 18th, and it’s the exhibit’s only stop in the northeast!) that I’m devoting a few blog entries to Frida Kahlo fashion, merchandise, & general Frida-love. I have mixed feelings about a plague of merchandise created in honor of someone as cool as Frida. (Would Frida, communist at heart, would’ve even liked such a thing?) But, on the other hand, as far as branding goes, I would rather have FRIDA written on my shirt than ABERCROMBIE.
