La Casa Azul

"Pintada de azul, por fuera y por dentro, parece alojar un poco de cielo. Es la casa típica de la tranquilidad pueblerina donde la buena mesa y el buen sueño le dan a uno la energía suficiente para vivir sin mayores sobresaltos y pacíficamente morir." - Carlos Pellicer

Painted blue, inside and out, it seems to house a bit of the sky. It is a house that epitomizes small town tranquility, where good meals and good sleep give one the energy to live fearlessly and to die peacefully.

La Casa Azul, the Blue House in the Coyoacán neighborhood of México D.F., frames the life of the artist Frida Kahlo. She was born here in 1907; she grew up here; she convalesced here for months after she was in a terrible bus accident as a young woman; she lived here with her husband, the famous muralist Diego Rivera, and she also lived here apart from him when they were separated; they provided refuge to the Russian revolutionary León Trotsky here; she died here in 1954.
The one hundred-year old house seems firmly rooted; the stone walls and patios, the floor tiles worn by footsteps, the black-and-white photos on the walls - give evidence of its history. But it feels vibrant, not like a dusty archive. The blue walls and the reaching calla lilies shout joy.

Frida's art studio perches on the second floor; one corner is framed by large windows set in volcanic rock, opening the studio to the light of the patio garden. A long, tall bookshelf stretches along a third wall, holding volumes of prehispanic and Mexican history, world art history, political theory, and Walt Whitman's poetry. The middle of the room is filled with her art tools: tables, easels, pastels, glass bottles of oils and ink, brushes, pencils, palettes. And a wheelchair. On the far wall is a large scientific poster mapping intra-uterine life. Frida's pelvis was crushed in the bus accident in her youth; she endured pain throughout her life and could never bear children.

The house, like Frida, is both cosmopolitan and grounded. It belongs in this Mexican neighborhood. But with the artifacts and art objects and history that Frida collected and created here, it holds a little of the world in its rooms. It is both intimate and universal. In this home, Frida painted sadness and she painted pain; she entertained illustrious guests with grandiose dinners; she retreated from the world when she ailed. And she composed a life of beauty.

Viva la vida, she inscribed on her lush painting of watermelons the same year that she died. Live life.