PAINTER FRIDA KAHLO INSPIRES T.O. ARTIST TO WORK OUT FEELINGS.

Byline: Victoria Girard People and Places

Maria Velasco-Lopez turned to art as therapy when her life became difficult.

``It was a form of therapy where I can express joy and anger and can channel my feelings in a more positive way,'' Maria said.

Her frustrations, she said, came from transitions in her life, including marital troubles and coping with having several teen-agers among her five children. Maria herself had given up a medical career when she married a pathologist.

``I got married and became stagnant. All I had left was God and art,'' she said.

A seascape was her first effort, but since the 1970s she's explored abstracts and worked in a variety of media: oils, acrylic, watercolor, ink and pencil. Her primary interest these days is a series of paintings focusing on Mexican artist Frida Kahlo, who died in 1954.

Maria's fascination with Kahlo stemmed from an earlier interest in Kahlo's husband, the famous Mexican muralist Diego Rivera, and from books about Kahlo's life. Maria identified with her, a ``person interested in bettering herself. She never gave up.'' But Kahlo had ``so painful a life it broke my heart,'' Maria said.

Maria decided to give Kahlo a better life in paintings and has titled her series, ``Frida Kahlo, A Life Re-created.'' Her paintings have given Kahlo children she never had and a happy marriage, which her marriage to Rivera was not.

Once while painting a close-up of Kahlo's face, Maria had an unusual experience. She was painting a reflection of Kahlo putting flowers at the foot of a cross in the pupils of Kalo's eyes when ``water started (coming out) in the left outer corner of the left eye. It appeared like she was crying,'' Maria remembered.

When Maria touched up the area, another droplet appeared on the right corner, and when she cleared that, one appeared in the center. ``It freaked me out, but it brought me closer to Kahlo,'' Maria said. The next time she painted on that picture, however, she mixed holy water with her acrylics, and Kahlo's image didn't cry again.

Growing up as the oldest child of 16 in Mexicali, Maria had her own challenges. ``In my time a woman was supposed to stay home and raise children. I was lucky my parents encouraged education.''

She attended a private Catholic school across the U.S. border in Calexico and eventually went on to medical school.

``I always dreamed I'd marry a Mexican charro, who would serenade me and bring me flowers,'' Maria recalled. Instead, a cousin in California gave Maria's address to a pathologist she knew at March Air Force Base. The correspondence grew into a meeting in Guadalajara.

Bill, her future husband, was persistent. He refused to leave until Maria agreed to marry him. She laughs at her ``honeymoon,'' which was spent at the Veterans Administration Hospital in Los Angeles doing an autopsy. ``I loved it. I'd never done an autopsy.''

Maria hasn't forgotten her medical training and even went on to study acupuncture and acupressure. She is a licensed doctor in Mexico and practices when she returns there on trips home. A future goal is to set up a clinic in Mexico to practice naturopathy, homeopathy, herbology, chiropractic and allopathy.

Maria's art has gained some renown in recent years. She was a featured artist this year at California Lutheran University with her Kahlo paintings. She showed her art and spoke at the La Raza event at University of California, Davis, and has exhibited at the Latino Museum in Los Angeles. Her art is on display at the Mexican-American Museum of Art of North America in Santa Ana, and a special showing of her work included with originals of Frida Kahlo is planned for a Southern California venue next year.

Maria's philosophy, which she shares in speaking engagements, is summed up simply: ``Don't let anybody tell you you can't be what you want to be.''

MEMO: Victoria Giraud welcomes comments and suggestions for columns. Call her at [phone].

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Photo: Maria Velasco-Lopez expresses her feelings of kinshi p with Frida Kahlo through a work in progress.

Tina Gerson/Daily News