Exploring Frida Kahlo's Impact

Tonight, I want to show you one of my favorite objects

in the whole world.

It's a painting that Frida Kahlo painted of herself.

She often painted herself with monkeys on her shoulders.

She did have a lot of monkeys,

but the reason that she had them

is because she trained them to let her know

when her husband had been sleeping with another woman.

If he came home from his studio

and he was having a good time with one of his female models,

which he did often, the monkeys would go mad

and then she would know

and then she would punish him accordingly.

But then there's a history of the painting

and how I came to have it in high school.

There was only one museum that you could go to.

It was called the Detroit Institute of Art.

The first time I came there,

there were these huge Diego Rivera paintings

all over the wall, murals.

But what I was really drawn to

were the small photographs kind of hidden away

of this beautiful Mexican woman.

And I just was really taken by her self-possession

and unique beauty, and it really moved me.

And she became a kind of eternal muse for me.

A few years later, I moved to New York

from Detroit, Michigan, and I started walking around

and there was a street fair and I saw this postcard

and it was this painting.

This is my first five minutes in New York

and the first person I see is Frida.

And I vowed to myself, one day I would own that painting.

Cut to 11 years later, that painting came on auction

and she was mine.

If you're a struggling artist

and a woman struggling in the world

and you feel like an outsider,

then you can make a connection to Frida.

She's just so like, don't fuck with me.

So she gives me a lot of strength.