Probably the three most recognizable icons of Mexico are the Virgin of Guadalupe, the skeletons of Day of the Dead and the images of the surrealist painter, Frida Kahlo. In every folk art making community in Mexico and created from every type of media, there are pieces of folk art which spring from the omnipresent importance of these ideas. Frida Kahlo is immediately associated with Mexico and being Mexican and her images, most of them painted by herself, appear in jewelry, nicho boxes, key chains and lots of other objects that attract tourists and native Mexicans alike. She was a beautiful woman! And she has a fascinating story. Those pictures with her monkeys or her parrots make her seem even more exotic. The unibrow defies prescribed beauty notions of the time. The wearing of huipiles from her mother's Tehuana home in the isthmus south of Oaxaca and the braiding of flowers in her hair were fashion only worn by the indigenous women of Mexico, not those of Frida's wealth and status. She was unconventional and that's part of the reason we find her so fascinating. She really did follow her own drummer. A hard thing to do and even harder at a time when women were sidekicks to men... We have some folk art in the shop right now that focuses on Frida Kahlo...