Faith Ringgold

Faith’s Biography Born in Harlem, NY, 1930 Learned sewing from her mother as a young girl She had asthma as a child, was very sick, so she spent a lot of time indoors working on art and sewing Studied art at City College of New York (1950’s), and then in Europe in 1960’s Now is an emeritus professor of art at University of California in San Diego Writes children’s books (14 so far) Does painting and sculpture, with strong influence from African art Had done more than 95 quilts and 100 other pieces of art Many of the quilts have stories written on them Quilts combine arts of painting, quilting, and storytelling into one work Started quilting instead of framing so that her paintings would be easy to ship

Soft Sculpture Mrs. Jones and Family Performance Mask

The Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles Madame C.J.Walker 1st American-born woman millionaire Vincent Van Gogh In this colorful painted quilt image, a group of African-American women proudly display their sunflower quilt, in a field of sunflowers, with Van Gogh standing quietly in the background, holding a vase of his beloved sunflowers. The buildings of the village of Arles are shown in the background, painted with the bright yellows and blues that Van Gogh loved to use in his paintings Fannie Lou Hamer Helped thousands of people register to vote Rosa Parks

Freedom Quilts Years ago, quilts were actually used to help slaves “fly” to freedom Patterns in the quilts had secret messages to guide escaping slaves to the north

Bitter Nest #1—Love in the School Yard Can be seen at the Phoenix Art Museum

Tar Beach

If one can, anyone can All you gotta do is try

Dancing at the Louvre In one of her later paintings, of her children in a European art museum (Dancing at the Louvre), the children played under the "masterpieces," not paying all that much attention. Underlying this wry observation, however, was the more serious reality of the absence of black people in the European art tradition, particularly women. The artists and the human images presented were almost all white - where did this leave a serious African-American student or artist, who surely would feel that this tradition, like others in society, blocked his/her entrance to it?

Matisse’s Chapel

Church Picnic