Ode to Frida
As a Mexican American growing up in Los Angeles, Mexican art and aesthetic is in my blood and all over my city. Spanish style homes, handmade lace embroidery, salsa dancing, and classical canciones were the art I lived and breathed. My family is full of artists including singers, dancers, painters, cooks, stylists, and of course, crocheters.
Painting of Frida Kahlo by my aunt Marcella
I could go on and on about the richness of beautiful art I enjoyed within my family and I will be forever grateful that I got to grow up around such beautiful culture.
My aunties first introduced me to the work of Frida Kahlo. Frida was a female Mexican artist who brought beauty into the darkness of her story and heavily influenced Mexican folk art. She used fantasy and realism to explore topics of gender, class and race in Mexican society through her paintings. She was internationally celebrated as an artist and feminist activist. Not to mention- her style is iconic. Who hasn’t seen her self portrait with her braided hair, flower crown, bold jewelry and full unibrow. Her art will live forever and continues to inspire.
Last September 2019 I wanted to make a piece to celebrate Dia De Muertos with Frida as my muse. I absolutely adore traditional Mexican floral lace and wanted to make something that captured the traditional side of my heavily Spanish and Mexican influenced design style. I used a traditional dress that I bought in Mexico as my inspiration. I loved the colorful floral embroidery surrounded by creme to make everything pop.
Tulum, Mexico 2017 in my inspiration dress
If you were to hack into my personal Pinterest and look at boards called “my life” or “things that inspire me,” you will soon find a ton of TILE. I LOVE Mexican tile to the point of obsession. The detailed patterns sprinkled into Spanish style architecture is what I live for and this infatuation is what inspired the floral motifs that the dress is made of.
I began with a very traditional style 3D rose granny square. Though I didn’t quite know how these little motifs would fit into the larger picture of the design, I had so much fun making them. I decided that they would sit at the top of the skirt and surrounded them with a very simple white and purple frame.
I decided to make the top part of the skirt a tighter fitted pencil skirt and then the lace would open up into a very dramatic flamenco style. I made the next round of motifs with a larger 3D flower and instead of making squares, made a teardrop shape to give a new element of ruffle. Did I have a plan? No. Did I know where to go next? No. But that's the beauty of freestyle crochet.
The bottom of the skirt is where things got…interesting. I made my final 3D flower motif bigger than the previous two and kept the shape rounded to create a ruffle. I connected all the motifs but felt that there were ugly gaps at the top of the joined motifs so I created a small triangular-shaped motif to go in between them. There were also gaps in between the motifs along the bottom edge so I decided to give one last pop of red and made another round of triangular shaped motifs. These lace details made the bottom of the skirt more visually stimulating and gave me another chance to use more traditional lace styles.
I was almost happy except that the petals on the flowers were not laying down. The larger flower had a looser lace with a mind of its own so I connected each petal to the surrounding lace so they would lay flat. Luckily I was very happy with this final pop of gold and I think the pattern I came up with for this final detail looked like I’d planned it all along.
I partnered up with my dear friend Margaret Lloyd who I grew up with as an auntie figure in my life. She is a brilliant florist and lives in a Spanish-style home in Santa Barbara, CA. She was the perfect person to team up with to capture Mexican aesthetics and celebrate Dia De Muertos. With the incredible photographer Lerina Winter and model Jocelyn Kaylene, we had the dream team. Margaret made a gorgeous headdress for our Frida and we took photos of her sitting on a tiled staircase decorated with marigolds and candles. I may or may not have cried when I saw the image (I cried.)
Recreation of Frida’s painting “Dos Fridas” With Rebekah Hofberg wearing the Angel Dress.
Ode To Frida featured by Green Wedding Shoes