Frida Kahlo Earrings: Copper, Bone, Lucite, Swarovski Crystal

When Lidia asked what she had to do to get Frida Kahlo earrings of her own, it was like magic. My first sale. And to my friend, author Lidia Yoknavitch, whom I first met in Salem at the Postmodern Piracy Festival. We are both feminist writers, and we both explore the body as a medium of meaning. It is an honor to send Lidia jewelry art for Frida Kahlo. Art that is in many ways also a representation of Chicana literary art, like a seance, connecting life and death. 

The earrings remind me of Gloria Anzaldúa, who commissioned my work ten years before her death, who made my writing matter by putting it alongside Audre Lorde (the last year of her life) and Cherríe Moraga. Lidia too is an important American writer. I think about things she and I share, like Consorting with Hecate, consorting with life and death. I think about our mutual friend literary artist Kathy Acker. Remembering each other, honoring the authenticity of women artists, the wild powers we have to merry meet and meet again. Life moves in a rhythm of circles connecting like to like. Like an old Navaho poem: When is the end? To die is not the end. When is the end? To die is not the end. 

If the earrings are for Frida, there are just as much for Kathy, just as much for Gloria, just as much for me and for Lidia. Like the red flowers Frida Kahlo often wore in her hair, women's art is rooted in beauty and truth. Like bone skulls, quintessential representations of Mexican culture, celebrations of the dead over Frida's bed and in her paintings, they remind us the nonphysical and physical worlds -- connected by spirit -- are one. The skulls of Frida's bed are as part of life and living as are paintings, jewelry and books. We are infinite beings. As Acker lived and loved and as Frida lived and loved, Lidia and I share literary art, French feminist theory, bisexuality, friendships, and red copper rings, bone, Lucite, with Swarovski crystals sparkling on us all. 

Big Hugs, TJ 

 Toltec Jewels is an author by day and jewelry artist by night. Her literary work is housed by the San Fransisco MOMA in a permanent collection of mixed media art and is published internationally in popular magazines, literary quarterlies, and university publications. A gemstone collector and jewelry lover, her store offers gemstone beads and she is happiest when creating handcrafted jewelry with her entire family. She has won a number of awards for both her literary and jewelry art. She is also the creator of Jewel School Friends, a community of expert and emerging jewelry artisans taking inspiration from each other, Jewel School, and jewelry art culture by featuring jewelry designers and bead artists and supporting entrepreneurship for independent artisans. Join her at Jewel School Friends on Facebook for tutorials, community events, challenges, and fundraisers.