FRIDA KAHLO

Yesterday I received a request to make a blog post about two things:

1. How to clone another Andy McParrot

2. Something about Frida Kahlo

#1 - HOW TO CLONE AN ANDY

First, make a pasta sculpture of Andy. Make sure you use strong glue to cement each noodle together. 

We wouldn't want her arm to fall off as she makes her way to the grocery store, right?

Make little clothes for the Andy. 

She likes Converse sneaks, hats with pom-poms on them, and mismatched funny socks. 

Give her fake-lashes too. 

And a lot of fluffy brown hair. If you don't have any fake hair you can use chocolate icing.

#2 - SOMETHING ABOUT FRIDA KAHLO

I'm not going to write an essay about her. 

If you really want to know about Frida Kahlo you can read about her here or here.

Frida's paintings were mainly self-portraits and reflected her feelings and experiences.

"The Broken Column"

"The Two Fridas"

Early in 2009 I started making body maps of myself in a small black book that I carry with me. 

It all started with a desire to create a series of paintings with an anatomical x-ray theme. I had became really interested in the imaginary inner-workings of the body and the effects of emotions upon it. 

 Image by Jason Freeney. I guess I'm not the only one obsessed with this stuff.

A lesson in Andy history:

Ever since I was small I've been drawn to anatomy and the workings of the human body. In Grade 1 I would cut my erasers down the middle, draw the outside of a person on the outside of the eraser, and then draw all the insides of a person on the inside of the eraser. 

I devoured medical books and made personal studies of the different systems. This obsession eventually stemmed into psychology and by the time I hit Grade 6 I was reading books about schizophrenia and art therapy.

So, last year I wanted this new painting series to show a cut-away of me and tell a story about what was going on inside of me from an emotional standpoint. I started to map myself every day. 

I was inspired by the art children do in class where they lay on the floor and trace themselves, and the small sketches I made were meant to be a snapshot in time to replicate in large scale later.

Here are some of my sketches. I picked a couple of my favs, some of them are unfinished but they are not meant to be complete, just guidelines for the big project:

"Beer makes me careless. I ate poutine, and I don't care!" - May 2010

"BARF. I ate too much food, and now I feel stuffed and SICK!" - April 2010

"Dehydrated on a plane with my Elmo hat. No water!" - September 2010

"When it's time to pay the piper he wants your heart" - June 2010

"All is full of peace" - January 2011  (my most recent one)

In each one I try to interpret what I'm feeling and where.
What does the sensation look like and where on my body do I feel it? What do I feel is happening with the energy around me? What shape does it have? What directions is it moving? and etc.