Happy Birthday, Frida Kahlo—Arte, Amor, Dolor: Pain & the Healing Power of Art

“Nothing is worth more than laughter. It is strength to laugh and to abandon oneself, to be light. Tragedy is the most ridiculous thing,” said Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who was born on this day in 1907. In honour of her 110th birthday (though Frida preferred to state her birth year as 1910 — the start of the Mexican […]

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Mark Strand on Being in Creative Flow

“[When] you’re right in the work, you lose your sense of time… You’re completely enraptured, You’re completely caught up in what you’re doing, and you’re sort of swayed by the possibilities you see in this work. If that becomes too powerful, then you get up, because the excitement is too great. You can’t continue to […]

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Anais Nin on Art, the Marvelous and Escaping Ordinary Life

“Ordinary life does not interest me. I seek only the high moments. I am in accord with the surrealists, searching for the marvellous. I want to be a writer who reminds others that these moments exist; I want to prove that there is infinite space, infinite meaning, infinite dimension. But I am not always in […]

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Salvador Dali on the Sacred Aspect of Mustaches

“Since I don’t smoke, I decided to grow a mustache – it is better for the health. However, I always carried a jewel-studded cigarette case in which, instead of tobacco, were carefully placed several mustaches, Adolphe Menjou style. I offered them politely to my friends: “Mustache? Mustache? Mustache?” Nobody dared to touch them. This was […]

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