Faith Ringgold - North Stratfield School PTA

Faith Ringgold
1930 – present
Narrative Quilting
In the vertical art storage rack you will find the following reproduction and posters:
Large reproductions:
The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles
Matisse’s Chapel
Dancing at the Louvre
Church Picnic
Posters:
• The Art Elements & Principles posters to use in the discussion
In the black cabinet you will find a white binder with a copy of this presentation. The books Aunt
Harriett’s Underground Railroad in the Sky, and Dinner at Aunt Connie’s House
Updated February 1, 2016
Faith Ringgold
Personal Information
Name:
Born:
Lived:
Family:
Faith Ringgold
October 8, 1930
Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem, New York. Her father drove a truck for the
sanitation department while her mother raised Faith and her two siblings, a brother
and a sister, before becoming a fashion designer in the 1940’s.
Ringgold is married to Burdette Ringgold. They have two daughters and three
granddaughters.
Professional Information
Type of artist:
Painter, quilter, writer.
Style:
Ringgold developed the story quilt painting, an art form in which she combines her
love of painting with quilt making. These story quilts are paintings with fabric
borders sewn around them. Ringgold then writes the accompanying story on the
fabric border. These painted story quilts are about the size of a blanket for a fullsized bed, but are intended to be hung on the wall as a painting.
FamousWorks:
Church Picnic (the work we are highlighting), Dancing at the Louvre, The
Quilting Bee at Arles (we also have this to show the children), Matisse’s Chapel
Artistic Credo:
A sense of hope and optimism run through Ringgold’s work. A recurrent theme in
her work is that people can change and even the world can change through the will
of people to make the world a better place.
Artist’s Backgrounds
Faith Ringgold was born in 1930 in Harlem, a neighborhood in New York City. Ringgold suffered
from asthma as a child and frequently had to stay home from school. While at home, her mother would
help her catch up with her studies, and then give her crayons, paper, needle, thread and fabric to make
art. Her family encouraged her creativity by taking her to concerts, museums and shows.
A teacher once asked her to draw a mountain. Having grown up in the city, she had never seen a
mountain and could not draw one properly. The teacher told her she could not become an artist, but
Ringgold said she would and she did. This underlying theme that it is always possible to attain one’s
dreams is woven throughout her work.
After completing high school in 1948, Ringgold went on to City College in New York. She graduated
in 1955 with a B.S. in Art and then taught in the New York Public Schools for 18 years.
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom
Faith Ringgold
In the 1980s Ringgold developed the story quilt painting. She began using this format after working on
a major quilt-making project with her mother and other quilt makers in celebration of women’s art.
This is when Ringgold began to receive national recognition.
Her first story quilt, Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima? (1983), tells the family history of Jemima Blakey, a
successful restaurant owner. The fictional Jemima was both a tribute to Ringgold’s mother (also a
successful businesswoman) and a fresh take on the Aunt Jemima stereotype. Ringgold believed that the
image had positive aspects that had been overlooked because of its well-known negative connotations.
In 1985, Ringgold became a full professor at the University of San Diego. She also has art studios in
New York. In 1990, Ringgold completed her first children’s book entitled Tar Beach based on
memories of her childhood in Harlem. She continues to write and illustrate children’s books.
Summary of Their Artistic Persona
Ringgold stated she became an artist for the same reason she became a writer – to tell her story.
Ringgold remembers sitting for hours while listening to her mother and other relatives tell stories about
the struggles and triumphs of various people. The stories in her artwork are just about life and all the
things that happen to people. A characteristic of many of Ringgold’s stories is that they are presented
as a close-up of one scene in an ongoing tale. This tale is told without firm conclusion or moral. This
approach is derived from an African tradition of story telling called a dilemma tale, an ongoing saga
about the everyday lives of people told without judgment.
The African American traditions of Ringgold’s family are strongly reflected in her work. The women
in Ringgold’s family have a long tradition of quilt making. Ringgold’s mother learned the quilt making
techniques of her great grandmother, a former slave. One of Ringgold’s earliest memories is of the
quilt her mother used to keep her warm in her stroller. As a mature artist, Ringgold returned to her
family’s quilt making tradition, expanding and enhancing the media to produce the story quilt, which
has become her most important cultural contribution.
Ringgold incorporates repeated patterns, lush colors, and highly stylized human figures in her work.
Her figures are often presented in full frontal pose that resembles Ethiopian and Egyptian sculptures.
She has also drawn from the tradition in Chinese painting where text is included in the painting itself.
While Chinese text is brief and purely descriptive, Ringgold has expanded on this, creating a narrative,
which could stand on its own.
When asked how she writes the stories of her quilts, Ringgold responded she thinks about the
characters and the story she wants to tell. Then she begins to write the chapters in segments. Then, just
like the materials of a quilt, she pieces the words together until they make a story. To date, Ringgold
has “written” 30 story quilts.
Through her work she gives her viewers a sense of the complexities and issues facing an African
American feminist artist in the contemporary American art world. Her underlying strength, her respect
for humanity, and her belief that we can change for the better override the sadness of some of her
stories and leave her viewers with a sense of hope for the future.
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom
Faith Ringgold
Featured Artwork
Church Picnic
19881, acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced fabric border
In Ringgold’s story quilt, Church
Picnic, we see a slice of African
American life presented with imagery
and with corresponding script.
Following the tradition prevailing in
American art schools where art
students are encouraged to draw from
their own experience, Ringgold tells
us about her world. However, in her
presentation she uses the format of a
dilemma tale which she has heard
used many times by her relatives in
their story telling sessions. The
minister and a young woman in the
middle of the picture obviously like
each other and are the center of
attention as members of the
congregation look on in approval or
amusement. The story teller is the
older woman seated in the upper right
corner with her young son at her side.
After arriving home, she recounts the
events of the afternoon to her
daughter who never showed up at the picnic and who the story teller thinks is listening in the next room.
As the story teller continues to recount the story of the picnic and budding romance, the mother realizes
that her daughter, to whom she thinks she is talking, is not even home. In fact, the daughter had not
gone to the picnic because she too is in love with the minister and could not bear to face seeing him in
love with someone else. We are left to wonder how the mother will deal with her daughter’s situation
when she comes home. We are also left with the feeling of how common these tales of unresolved
affairs of the heart are. Though the setting and characters are perhaps different from the viewer’s
experience, the tale of passion and of lost love is a common experience for many people.
Ask
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What do you think about this painting? (probe for emotional reactions to see if they like it or
not)
How does the painting make you feel? (happy? sad?)
What is the focal point of the painting? (the couple standing in the middle)
Does everyone see the small panels of words in this quilt? What story is this quilt trying to tell?
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom
Faith Ringgold
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Do you think the people are having a good time? Why or why not (yes – everyone is smiling)
Where do you think the people were before the picnic? Where do you think they are going
next?
The story teller is the woman sitting in the upper right with her young son at her side. Do you
think the story might be different if the minister told the story? Or if the other woman who is in
love with the minister told the story? (yes – different points of view)
Ringgold is known for her sense of hope. When looking at Church Picnic, what do you think
various people are hopeful for, for example, the minister, the woman telling the story, the story
teller’s daughter?
The Sunflowers Quilting Bee at Arles
1991, acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced fabric border
Sunflower Quilting Bee tells
a story. A group of famous
19th and 20th century AfricanAmerican women are holding
a quilting bee. Here in Arles,
France, they meet the Dutch
painter Vincent van Gogh,
who made paintings of
sunflowers. The heroines
pictured are: Madame C. J.
Walker, Sojourner Truth, Ida
B. Wells, Fannie Lou Hamer,
Harriet Tubman, Rosa Parks,
Mary McLeod Bethune and
Ella Baker.
Sometimes an artist pays
tribute to other artists by
incorporating them into
artworks. Faith Ringgold has
chosen to honor Vincent Van
Gogh in a colorful quilt.
Ask:
• What do you think is the most interesting thing about this quilt?
• Does anyone know who Vincent Van Gogh is? (Famous post-impressionist artist who died long
before Faith was born.)
• Why do you think Faith included Van Gogh in this painting?
• What do you think he is doing over there?
• What do you think of the colors she uses? (Yellow was a favorite of Van Gogh. Is that why she
used a lot of it?
• Is this quilt realistic to you? Why or why not
Art in the Classroom
North Stratfield School
Faith Ringgold
Discussing the Art Further
Other Quilts from Ringgold’s Series: The French Collection
The series tells the fictional story of Willa Marie Simone, a young black woman who
moves to Paris in the early 20th century. Told through text written around the margin of
each quilt, Willa Marie’s adventures lead her to meet celebrities such as Pablo Picasso
and Henri Matisse, Josephine Baker, Zora Neale Hurston, Sojourner Truth, and Rosa
Parks on the road to becoming an artist and businesswoman.
Drawing on her own struggle for recognition in an art world dominated by European
traditions and male artists, Ringgold uses this narrative format to literally rewrite the
past by weaving together histories of modern art, African-American culture, and
personal biography. This practice reflects the shift toward postmodernism in art of the
1980s and 1990s. In deliberate contrast to Modernism’s emphasis on autonomy and
universal meaning, artists like Ringgold highlighted the implicit biases in accepted forms
of art, especially in their treatment of race and gender. Characteristic is her use of
appropriation, narrative, biographical references, and non-Western traditions. Through
these devices, Ringgold offers an alternative to the European and masculine perspectives
that are prevalent in art history.
Dancing at the Louvre
1991, acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced fabric border
Faith Ringgold’s Dancing at the Louvre is
all about breaking the rules, and having lots
of fun while doing it. Combining
representational painting and AfricanAmerican quilting techniques with the
written word, Dancing at the Louvre is the
first in Ringgold’s series of twelve “story
quilts” called The French Collection.
The series tells the fictional story of Willa
Marie Simone, a young black woman who
moves to Paris in the early 20th century.
Told through text written around the margin
of each quilt, Willa Marie’s adventures lead
her to meet celebrities such as Pablo
Picasso and Henri Matisse, Josephine Baker,
Zora Neale Hurston, Sojourner Truth, and
Rosa Parks on the road to becoming an
artist and businesswoman.
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom
Faith Ringgold
Matisse’s Chapel (The French
Collection)
1991, acrylic on canvas, tie-dyed, pieced
fabric border
Ringgold visited a chapel in France designed by
Henri Matisse, a well-known French artist.
Matisse’s Chapel became a story quilt based on
an imaginary gathering of Faith’s own relatives in
the chapel. In the story quilt they are known as
Willia’s family.
COLOR
• What colors did Ringgold use in her paintings? (green, black, red, blue)
• Are the colors warm or cool? (warm, rich colors)
• Name as many different greens as you can (emerald green, Kelly green, lime green, etc.)
• How does the use of these colors make you feel (happy? relaxed?)
LIGHT
• Is the picture light or dark? (dark)
• Where does the light appear to be coming from? (behind the trees)
SHAPE
• Do you see more geometric or free-form shapes? (geometric)
• What shapes do you see? (circles-plates/heads, triangles-skirts/quilt, rectangles-picnic blankets)
LINE
• Where do you see straight lines? (quilt edges, picnic blanket edges)
• Where do you see curved, soft lines? (hats, bows on dresses)
TEXTURE
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What types of textures do you see in the painting? (soft/smooth – picnic blankets, clothing,
rough – tree branches)
What effect does the fabric border, the quilt, have on the painting? (it softens it, adds more
texture, makes you want to touch it)
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom
Faith Ringgold
SPACE
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What takes up the most space – the people or the background? (people)
Resources
https://www.khanacademy.org/humanities/global-culture/identity-body/identity-body-unitedstates/a/ringgold-dancing-at-the-louvre
https://www.questia.com/magazine/1P3-38629032/new-york-artist-takes-us-dancing-at-the-louvre
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/02/arts/art-review-colorful-patchwork-tales-of-black-and-white-lifeand-death.html?pagewanted=all
http://www.knowitall.org/artopia/sculpture/artcritic/text/text.cfm?artWorkID=35
To see the Church Picnic story quilt online, go to www.faithringgold.com/ringgold/d05.htm
Faith Ringgold: A Study Guide for Teachers, Elizabeth Ament, PHD, Shorewood Fine Art
Reproductions, 1996
Faith Ringgold’s French Collection and Other Story Quilt: Dancing at the Louvre, Dan Cameron,
University of California Press, 1998
www.faithringgold.com
Faith Ringgold’s Biography, www.teacher.scholastic.com/authorsandbooks/events/ringgold
North Stratfield School
Art in the Classroom