‘From the Canyons We Create’

Renu Arora

 

When I think of Frida Kahlo, I see myself  

looking in the mirror  

I see her, pink flowers in her hair 

 

I want to reach into the mirror 

And touch her 

Say,  

I know you  

I feel you 

I mirror you 

 

You wear the flowers, but you never hid the pain 

It’s in the paint 

It’s in the art 

 

As it’s been for me since my accident and near-death experience (NDE) in 2017.

As I say in my concept album, The Burgundy Book…  

‘It took for me to be trapped under a bus, unable to walk, for me to stand up and  learn to fly.’ 

(The Burgundy Book – ‘To Life Lights’)

 

Dear Frida,  

You say – ‘The most powerful art is to make pain a healing talisman.’ 

When I read your words, they chime in me with a deep artistic knowing.

The  Burgundy Book, my artistic response to a life-changing accident, is my talisman.  In one of my tracks I say… 

‘Since the NDE I follow the magic because it follows me.’  

(The Burgundy Book – ‘To Life Lights’) 

 

People wonder, why speak of magic, when you’ve fallen  

Under the tram, under the bus, 

seventy years between us  

you in Mexico, me in London 

you with your thirty operations 

me, with my thirty pieces of bone 

 

Your voice and mine 

echoing through time 

fates colliding 

reflecting, refracting through shrieking shards  

Immobilised in our casts. 

 

In our art 

we move.

 

‘Feet what do I need you for when I have wings to fly.’ (Kahlo)  

 

It’s uncanny you know this  

ironic how we meet through time, though neither of us walk 

like we’re seeing with one eye. 

We found a spine beyond a spine vertebrae re-aligning 

what should have been tragedy grew wings.

 

Your fuchsia floral forest 

my love of all things pink. 

Your monobrow, a magic carpet

to fly through time for us to speak. 

I know you know  

Immobility  

is not disability 

and art, beyond catharsis, 

Is the journey home 

that every human being is craving.

 

Spinning into the undertow  

I catapulted out of my body  

into a near-death experience.

 

In our broken bodies we found freedom stir stories into senses 

Paint, Poem, Song  

‘Seeking home inside my lyric – 

 

‘I shade the note with the sound I see

I sound the notes with the shade I hear

A colour sounds

 

Another flickers 

As it enters me.’ 

From the song ‘You’ in The Burgundy Book to you, Frida.  

 

The world gave us one narrative 

we painted another. 

This is the revolution

 

Here is where our stories mirror. 

We know the depths.  

We know the terrain.  

We found the gifts.

 

When I gaze into your portrait 

soul to soul  

I see you are not phased. 

And you hold the frame again, again and again.

 

If you decide to paint the grit you do. 

If you decide to paint the florals you do. 

You know how people look 

how people see 

and you direct the view.

 

I know those broken bones. 

I know this fracture. 

 

Body cast in notes of pain 

nails in your face 

skin-splayed  

quick-sand surrounds 

 

held by a brace 

that you embrace 

with a skeleton catwalk corset cinching in a tiny waist.

 

Can we breathe?

 

We don’t walk but 

When our spirits leave us 

We dance together through our dreams Retain our beauty. 

Signature monobrow 

thick black hair 

poised 

balletic 

braced.

 

Teaching the world how to respond

I  

sit by your side 

to read your pictures  

painted in a thousand worlds.

 

A photo of you 

black and white 

polaroids my mind.

 

Cocooned in your haven 

with everything you need. 

Cushioned 

painting propped 

crossing landscapes in your mind

the muse flies to your bed. 

And at your invitation 

the world enters.  

At the tide of the day 

Turning away  

by night we dance through our dreams 

waltzing in Burgundy 

to heartbeat monitors. 

Swaying at the edge 

your cast, a clutch bag 

completing the costume. 

In my dreams I give you a standing ovation.

 

We are the monitor 

No longer monitored 

Holding the corset 

In ribbons of art

 

With Love, 

Renu X 

 

Returning through the mirror from Frida to me, 

reflections and refractions; how her art chimes in me. 

I hope for those who read this or listen to my art – an ode to The Burgundy Book

– you will find a sense of solace. Know that I too am engaged in this making and

remaking… painting the pictures again and again, so as not be confined. 

 

Charged by Frida Kahlo in her time to claim herstory, I pull the threads from her 

time into mine. Her hands painting a continuous pathway, helping to re-route 

the narrative.  

Central to my narrative is the question – how does choosing the right label help 

the artist to find agency and create from a place of strength?

 

I now call myself ‘a sit-down artist’ – a phrase I’ve coined.

 

Musings on Frida Kahlo make me reflect deeply about what it takes to integrate 

the life, and the means to work, into the artist’s voice?

 

I have needed to find a way to make my work again, and in doing so

I  contemplate. I pose the questions.

 

What does it take to integrate traumatic injuries, visible or hidden?

 

How does one become empowered as a disabled person and artist? And further 

– how do any of us integrate the fissures to become whole?

 

As I articulate in The Burgundy Book…

 

‘My bones broke 

My tissues broke

My psyche broke 

My spirit broke 

My world broke 

And my heart broke 

And here I began to find peace in the pieces.’ 

(The Burgundy Book – ‘Peace in the pieces’)

 

How do you find a sense of peace in your new reality?  

How do you find the frame to hold yourself,  

to honour the intricacies of you? 

This embraces how you speak your truths. 

How you place pen on page 

so it sings of you 

within you 

through you.

 

If it gestures  

of dance 

of song 

that is the place where the heart belongs.

 

This spoken word, intent-full  

embroidered through the collage in Frida’s journal 

is a sashay into art, a sway into song.

 

From the canyon we create. 

I claim the colour of my crutches, and my wheelchair – pink 

As artists we are forever reaching for the sun and moon, the flowers in bloom 

that we wear in our hair.  

 

‘From the Canyons We Create’ – audio version