…Always my torment you are my destiny
The shape and colour of everything real
Always near…

The Kolors, an Italian electropop band sang ‘Frida, Frida, Frida’, at the San Remo music festival as a declaration of ‘viva la vida’ – live life. We can only guess what Frida’s reaction would have been as she felt so imperfect herself but she certainly knew how to work with colours. She envisaged a future for strong colour. With her Tehuantepec style long circle skirts, huipil blouses and rebozo shawls, today she would be crowned an ethnic-folk influencer. Yet there is much more than an eccentric  tapestry style to her, because it was her internal suffering and pain that were transformed into art and beauty.

She deemed herself odd and imperfect as well as explosive, as we all aspire to be. Her life seen today has traces of the East as well as a visible Mexican heritage because in order to overcome the limitations of a fragile body and satisfy her thirst for life she demanded of herself an inordinate imagination which graced her with a multi-coloured immortality, at least in spirit.

Maybe Frida had in fact discovered the powerful benefits of Campo Research’s Siddha colours? Maybe she really had…Having peeked into her studio and having thought about her life of suffering I wouldn’t exclude the fact that in colour she had found her savior! Siddha Colours are pure bioactive colour extracts from flowers, bark, leaves, twigs, plants, grasses, roots of herbs and mineral waxes (or oxides). They have been chosen on the basis of the Siddha definition of their properties for promoting preventative health care. What’s their origin?

In nature, plant and herb waxes are secreted onto the surfaces of petals and leaves to aid the control of and maintain the moisture balance of transpiration and for protection against harmful UV rays. These waxes are high molecular weight natural waxes taken from 27 botanical species (permitted by Shiva!). Using critical high temperature heat, these waxes are incorporated or coated onto a variety of finely ground substrates- minerals, Mother of Pearl or Pearl Oyster shells and other marine shellfish shells. The sealing of the wax and the substrate is carried out by a specific process using special earthenware containers buried underground and heated by natural sources.
Rather than rare, the result is unique because both functional extracts and pure pigments are obtained.

In discovering  colour Frida was able to recount her difficult life and her controversial relationship with her body. Rebel and non-conformist she taught us that yellow, red and blue can change your life. Long live colour then, with every shade concealing strength and beauty to free us from the ghosts of our past.

‘Let it be our guide,
Just like Frida, just like Frida’ (The Kolors)

The West and Frida and the East and Campo Research have met.