1. Traditional Patchwork Quilt

2. Faith Ringgold: Tar Beach
Telling her Story With Quilt Art

3. MAGNIFIER: http://www.learner.org/courses/globalart/work/251/zoom.html
1. LOOKING 10x2
Tar Beach 2 is what Faith Ringgold refers to as a story quilt.
Inspired by African and African American storytelling traditions, the work combines narrative imagery with written text that gives permanence to what might be considered the oral component of the story. Here, Ringgold tells the tale of Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a little girl growing up in Harlem in the 1940s. The scene is one of domestic leisure set on a New York City rooftop. Referred to in the vernacular of the day as “tar beach,” the roof was a place where city dwellers could find relief from oppressive summer heat and the stresses of everyday life.
Ringgold’s protagonist lies on a mattress beside her younger brother, Bebe, looking up at the starry sky. Four adults sit at a nearby table where they chat and play cards. Other signs of domestic life abound on the rooftop—newly washed clothing and linens hang out to dry and a variety of beverages and home-cooked dishes are spread out over a flowered tablecloth. Underneath this table is a basket filled to the top with either food or fabric, and scattered around the edges of the roof are potted plants. The scene appears like a serene oasis in the midst of the crowded city that surrounds it. In the upper section, there is a surreal depiction of Cassie’s father standing on a rooftop and Cassie and Bebe flying through the air above the George Washington Bridge. The story’s text appears in blocks around them.
The story of Tar Beach 2 draws on Ringgold’s own memories of growing up in Harlem and spending time with family and friends on the roof. It is not, however, purely autobiographical. For Ringgold, Cassie’s ability to fly is a kind of metaphor for individual potential and the imagination’s ability to open up a world of new possibilities. In the 1960s and ’70s, Ringgold had started her art career making overtly political paintings that dealt with issues of racial and gender equality. In a much more subtle way, Tar Beach 2 continues to address those themes through its content as well as its materials and technique.
Tar Beach 2 is one of an edition of twenty-four silk screens on silk, which Ringgold made while in residence at Philadelphia’s Fabric Workshop in It is a variation on an earlier work called Tar Beach (Guggenheim Collection, NY) that the artist made in 1988 as part of the larger Woman on a Bridge series. The original Tar Beach consisted of a central scene painted on canvas bordered by fabric that had been painted, printed, quilted, and stitched together. By making textile a central part of these and other works, Ringgold challenged the art world’s long-held biases toward “high arts” (e.g., painting and sculpture) made by white men with larger-than-life personas, bringing to the fore artistic practices previously considered domestic crafts that were made mostly by women, whose identities were largely unknown and whose talents were largely unrecognized.
I See
I Think
I Wonder
MAGNIFIER: