The iconic Mexican artist Frida Kahlo was only 18 when a violent collision involving the bus she was riding on propelled an iron handrail through her abdomen and uterus and smashed her spinal column, causing multiple fractures.
To ease the chronic and unrelenting pain she suffered for the rest of her life – she died at age 47 — Kahlo often turned to topical remedies made from the cannabis plant.
This information comes first-hand from Kahlo’s great-grandnieces who, during a ten-day-long meeting last summer with Marisela Nuño, bestowed their blessing on a soon-to-debut cannabis brand.
Nuño is the founder and CEO of Los Angeles-based Hierba Buena, and her first brand, which has a soft launch on December 16 and formally opens for business in the first quarter of 2025, is called Alas Pa′ Volar. Those Spanish words (Wings to Fly) are a tribute to Kahlo, the brand’s inspiration, as words the artist inscribed across one of her last paintings.
Kahlo’s great-grandnieces Frida and Mara and their mother (also named Mara) are descended from Frida’s sister Cristina and are fully on board with Nuño’s project. “We are honored when passionate people want to carry Frida’s image and spirit,” great-grandniece Frida Hentschel said through a publicist. “We are happy to work with the Alas Pa’ Volar team, who has the commitment to honor and protect the Kahlo legacy.”
Alas Pa′ Volar is a shortening of the phrase Pies pa qué los quiero si tengo alas pa’ volar. (“Feet, why do I need them if I have wings to fly”), which Kahlo wrote across a painting of her severed leg after she sadly lost the leg to medical amputation. The new brand’s packaging and visual identity – created by Mexican artist Francisco Herrera and featuring a winged spider monkey — evokes Kahlo’s exotic style, as well as her love of these monkeys, which once gamboled around her garden.
H/T: www.forbes.com
