Mark: Alright Michelle, before we dive in, quick-fire question. When I say Frida Kahlo, what’s the first thing that comes to mind? Michelle: A powerful unibrow on a tote bag, probably next to a scented candle. And maybe a very complicated love life. Mark: That is a perfect, if slightly cynical, summary of modern 'Fridamania.' Her face is everywhere, a global icon. But it’s that very phenomenon that makes you wonder what’s behind the merchandise. Michelle: Exactly. Is she just a symbol for tote bags, or is there something more we’re supposed to be getting from her? Mark: That's exactly what we're tackling today, through Arianna Davis's book, What Would Frida Do?: A Guide to Living Boldly. And it’s a fascinating lens because the author, Arianna Davis, isn't a traditional art historian. She's the Digital Editorial Director at the TODAY show and was a key figure at Oprah Daily. Michelle: Oh, that explains a lot. So this isn't a dense, academic biography. It’s more of an inspirational, accessible guide. Mark: Precisely. It’s been praised for that, but it’s also gotten some mixed reviews from readers who felt it was a bit repetitive or wanted a deeper dive. But I think that’s the perfect entry point for us—to explore the lessons Davis pulls from this monumental life. Michelle: I like that. So, it's not just about the icon, but the lessons from the icon. Where do we even start with a life that big? Mark: We start with the performance. Everyone thinks of Frida as this titan of confidence, but the book argues it was a masterfully crafted act.

Michelle: Wait, an act? I always pictured her as just being born with that level of boldness. Like she came out of the womb with a flower crown and a defiant stare. Mark: That’s the myth, but the reality is so much more interesting. The book presents her confidence as a deliberate construction, a tool she used to shape her own narrative. There’s this incredible story from 1932. She and her husband, the world-famous muralist Diego Rivera, are in Detroit. She’s in her mid-twenties, relatively unknown, and completely in his shadow. Michelle: Right, she’s just "the wife" at this point. Mark: Exactly. A reporter from the Detroit News, Florence Davies, is interviewing them and turns to Frida with this incredibly patronizing question. She asks, "Are you a painter, too?" Michelle: Ouch. That’s so dismissive. The "gleefully dabbles in works of art" kind of question. Mark: That’s literally the headline the reporter used! "Wife of Master Mural Painter Gleefully Dabbles in Works of Art." But Frida’s response is what’s legendary. Without missing a beat, this young, unknown woman looks the reporter in the eye and says, "Yes. The greatest in the world." Michelle: Hold on. She said that out loud? To a reporter? That's not just confidence, that's a power move. That’s almost delusional audacity, and I love it. Mark: It’s pure performance. And she doubled down. Later, she told the same reporter, with a twinkle in her eye, "Of course, Diego does pretty well for a little boy, but it is I who am the big artist." She was actively authoring her own legend, right there in real time. Michelle: So was it real confidence, or just a mask? A 'fake it 'til you make it' strategy on an epic scale? Mark: The book argues it was both. It was a performance that, over time, became her reality. And it wasn't just in her words. It was in her entire aesthetic. Her style was a huge part of this constructed identity. The traditional Tehuana dresses, the elaborate braids, the flowers in her hair—it was all a deliberate choice. Michelle: I always assumed that was just her celebrating her Mexican heritage. Mark: It was, but it was also strategic. The long, flowing skirts concealed her right leg, which was thinner and shorter due to childhood polio. The bold colors and jewelry drew the eye upward, away from her physical frailties and toward her face, her gaze, her unibrow—which she intentionally exaggerated in her paintings. She turned what society might see as flaws into her signature look. Michelle: She was curating her own image, long before Instagram. But in a way that feels so much more authentic. She wasn't hiding her flaws with a filter; she was putting them on a pedestal. Mark: And she took it even further. She famously changed her birth year from 1907 to 1910. Michelle: Why would she do that? Mark: To align her birth with the start of the Mexican Revolution. She literally rewrote her own history to become a "daughter of the revolution." She was crafting an identity that was inseparable from her country, her politics, and her art. It was all one big, bold performance. Michelle: That makes so much sense. The elaborate style, the bravado... it was armor. And she needed it, because the book makes it clear her life was defined by almost unimaginable pain.

Mark: It truly was. If her confidence was the armor, her pain was the fire it was forged in. The book is unflinching about this. It starts early, with polio at age six, which left her with the nickname "Peg Leg Frida" from cruel classmates. But the defining event happened when she was eighteen. Michelle: The bus accident. I’ve heard about it, but I don’t think I know the full story. Mark: It’s almost impossible to comprehend. In 1925, she was on a bus in Mexico City with her boyfriend. The bus was struck by a trolley. The impact was catastrophic. A steel handrail broke off, entered her left side, and came out through her pelvis. Michelle: Oh my god. That’s horrific. Mark: Her spine was fractured in three places. Her collarbone, ribs, and pelvis were broken. Her right leg had eleven fractures, and her foot was crushed. Her boyfriend, who was with her, described finding her completely naked, her clothes torn off by the impact, covered in blood. But there was one more detail. An artisan on the bus had been carrying a packet of powdered gold, and it burst open in the crash. Michelle: Wait, what? Mark: So, in the middle of this horrific, bloody scene, Frida’s body was shimmering, covered in gold dust. Michelle: That image is... unforgettable. The gold dust. It’s like a metaphor for her entire life—turning horror into something beautiful and valuable. Mark: It’s the perfect metaphor. She survived, but her life was forever changed. She endured more than thirty operations. She was in full-body casts for months at a time. Her dream of becoming a doctor was over. And it was in that bed, bored and in agony, that her father set up a special easel for her and a mirror above her head. Michelle: So she could see herself. Mark: Exactly. And that’s when she started painting. She famously said, "I paint myself because I am so often alone, because I am the person I know best." This wasn't vanity. The book makes it clear this was a deep, introspective process. Of her 143 known paintings, 55 are self-portraits. She was documenting her reality, her pain, her resilience. Michelle: It’s the ultimate act of taking control. The world inflicted this pain on her, but she got to decide how the story was told. She became both the artist and the subject. Mark: And she never shied away from the gruesome details. She painted herself in steel corsets, with nails piercing her skin, with her heart exposed and bleeding. She was turning her suffering into a visual language. It was her way of creating something permanent out of her brokenness. Michelle: It reminds me of that quote from the book, "Feet, what do I need you for when I have wings to fly?" It’s this incredible defiance. She’s acknowledging her broken body but refusing to be limited by it. Mark: That quote was from her diary, written after her leg was amputated later in life. Even at her lowest point, she found this poetic way to reframe her loss into a kind of freedom. It’s the alchemy of turning pain into power. Michelle: It’s one thing to endure pain, but it’s another thing entirely to transform it into your life’s work, into your legacy. Mark: And if the bus accident was the first grave accident of her life, she famously said the second was Diego.

Michelle: Ah, yes. The other great source of pain. The book doesn't shy away from this, does it? Mark: Not at all. It positions their relationship as the central, defining force of her life—for better and for worse. They were called "the elephant and the dove." He was massive, twenty years her senior, and already a world-renowned artist with a reputation. She was petite, fiery, and just starting out. Michelle: And their love story was... tumultuous, to put it mildly. Mark: That’s the understatement of the century. It was a hurricane of passion, collaboration, infidelity, and heartbreak. Diego was a serial philanderer, and Frida knew it. She wrote in a letter, accepting that he had two great loves: painting, and women in general. She tried to live with it, and even had her own affairs, with both men and women. Michelle: A very modern arrangement, in some ways. But there was one affair that was different, right? The one that truly broke her. Mark: Yes. The ultimate betrayal. In 1934, Diego had an affair with Frida’s younger sister, Cristina. Michelle: With her sister? The one she was incredibly close to? How does a relationship even survive that? Honestly, this is where the "What Would Frida Do?" concept gets complicated for me. Why do we celebrate this as some epic romance when it sounds so incredibly toxic? Mark: That’s the core paradox, and the book dives right into it. Frida was devastated. This wasn't just another affair; it was a profound violation. Her reaction was to create one of her most violent paintings, titled A Few Small Nips. It depicts a murdered woman lying on a bed, stabbed all over, with a man standing beside her, holding a bloody knife. It’s a raw, visceral expression of her emotional state. Michelle: And she cut her hair, right? I remember reading that she chopped off her long hair that Diego loved so much. An act of defiance. Mark: A pure act of defiance. She was reclaiming her body, rejecting the version of herself that he desired. They separated, and she moved into her own apartment. For a time, she was independent. But here’s the twist that’s so hard to understand: she eventually forgave both Cristina and Diego. Michelle: She forgave them? How? Mark: The book suggests her love for Diego was so all-consuming that it defied logic. It was an addiction, a force of nature in her life. They eventually divorced in 1939, but it didn't last. They remarried just a year later. Their bond was, for whatever reason, unbreakable. Michelle: So when she said, "There have been two great accidents in my life. One was the trolley, and the other was Diego," she wasn't being dramatic. She was equating him with the event that physically shattered her. Mark: Exactly. He was both the source of her greatest joy and her deepest anguish. He championed her art, he encouraged her to embrace her Mexican identity, but he also inflicted unimaginable emotional pain. Their love wasn't a fairy tale; it was a battlefield. And she chose to stay on it.

Michelle: So when you put it all together—the performance of confidence, the alchemy of pain, and this all-consuming, destructive love—what's the real takeaway? What would Frida do? Mark: I think the book’s answer is this: she would take the broken, messy, painful pieces of her life and she would build a mosaic. She would insist on being the one to arrange the pieces. Her confidence was a shield she built to protect herself from a world that saw her as broken. Her art was a way to make her private pain public, permanent, and beautiful. And her love for Diego, however destructive, was the chaotic energy that fueled so much of her creative fire. Michelle: So she didn't just live her life; she curated it. She was the artist of her own existence. Mark: She was the artist, the subject, and the curator. She lived without apology. Think about her final solo exhibition in Mexico. She was bedridden, dying, and her doctors forbade her from going. So what did she do? She had her four-poster bed put in an ambulance and transported to the gallery. She arrived like a queen, held court from her bed, drank, and sang with her friends. Michelle: Wow. That's not just resilience, that's performance art. She was turning her own deathbed into a stage. Mark: It’s the ultimate expression of her philosophy. And it’s captured in the last words she ever painted. On a still life of vibrant, sliced watermelons, just eight days before she died, she wrote two words. Michelle: Let me guess. Mark: Go for it. Michelle: "Viva la Vida." Mark: Viva la Vida. Long Live Life. After everything—the polio, the accident, the 30-plus surgeries, the heartbreak, the betrayals—that was her final, defiant message to the world. Michelle: That’s incredible. It makes you wonder, what parts of our own stories are we not telling as boldly as we could? What are we hiding or downplaying, instead of putting it on a pedestal and owning it? Mark: A question for all of us to live with. Mark: This is Aibrary, signing off.