Faith Ringgold: The Art And Life Of Faith Ringgold

773 Words2 Pages

Faith Ringgold was born in New York City on October 8, 1930. She grew up in Harlem and witnessed the great depression. She was introduced to art and creativity at a very young age. Her mother and father were also a part of the art world as a fashion designer and storyteller. As a young girl, she had chronic asthma so she enjoyed visual arts as a distraction from her complications. She is an artist that is best known for her amazing quilts. Her artwork we see today was influenced by the people and music around her during her childhood. There was also racism, sexism, and segregation she had to deal with daily. In 1950, she enrolled into the city college of New York, pressured by her parents. She was intended to major in art but during the time In 1959, she received her master’s degree and soon traveled to Europe with her mother and daughters. While traveling abroad she visited many museums including The Louvre. That museum in particular inspired her future of quilt paintings known as the French Collection. Her trip was cut short due to the death of her brother in 1961. Faith's mother, children and, she returned to the US to attend the funeral. She also got married again in 1962 to Burdette Ringgold. She also traveled to West Africa in 1976 and 1977. These two trips had a profound influence on her mask making, doll painting and sculptures. Ringgold’s artistic practice was broad and diverse, and included media from painting to quilts, from sculptures and performance art to children’s books. In 1973, she quit teaching school to commit herself to creating art full-time. Ringgold has been an activist since the 1970s, participating in feminist and anti-racist organizations. In 1968 Poppy Johnson, and art critic Lucy Lippard, founded the Ad Hoc Women's Art Committee with Ringgold and protested a major modernist art exhibition at the Whitney Museum of American The inaugural show of it featured soul food rather than traditional cocktail, embracing cultural roots. She adapted the story quilt Tar Beach for a children’s book published in 1991. Its popular success led to the development of several other titles and books for children. For adults, she wrote her memoirs, published in 1995. Her memoir flashbacks on how she had to experience a wall of prejudices as she worked to refine her artistic vision and raise a family. At the same time, the story she tells is one of warm family memories and sustaining friendships, community involvement, and hope for the future. Today, she is still a well-known artist and grandmother of three. She also resides in both New Jersey and San Diego, California, where she is a professor of art at the University of California at San Diego. As an artist, author, and educator she has won many awards, and her work is in the permanent collections of the Guggenheim Museum, the Museum of Modern Art, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, all in New York City. She has held Quilt Making Workshops for educators, and held gatherings on Quilts and Quilts and Story for adults and children, at the University of California, San

Open Document