Faith Ringgold is an American artist known for presenting her own art forms. Among his productions are the soft sculptures, that is, the masks and quilts that illustrate the stories.
Ringgold’s art and activism go hand in hand. His art directly attacked prejudice and has always served as a political statement using the shock force of racial slurs.
- His work highlights ethnic tensions.
- Political discontent and racial unrest in the 1960s and provides a crucial insight into perceptions of white culture in relation to African Americans.
The making of duvets is rooted in southern slave culture during the civil war era. In this way, the artist took the traditional craft of making quilts and reinterpreted her role by telling stories about her life and many other members of the black community.
Faith Ringgold was called Faith Willie Jones and was born on October 8, 1930 in New York City. Her father, Louis Jones, was a truck driver, while her mother, Willi Posey Jones, worked as a fashion designer.
His parents were able to earn enough to meet the basic needs of their three children.
Faith Ringgold was unable to attend school regularly due to health problems. Because he had asthma, he spent most of his childhood in the hospital or at home. During this stage, he developed his love of drawing. He later studied art at New York City University.
In 1950 he married Robert Earl Wallace, a jazz pianist, but the marriage did not last long and they eventually divorced in 1956. He had two daughters with Wallace, Barbara and Michele. Faith remarried, this time at Burdette Ringgold on May 19, 1962. .
After graduating, Faith worked as an art teacher at City College New York. He also worked at Wagner College and Bank Street College of Education in the 1960s and 1970s.
In the early 1970s, he abandoned traditional painting and began making acrylic paintings on canvas with lush fabric edges, such as those of Tibetan thangkas.
In addition, he worked with his mother on the design of cloth, pearl and raffia masks, which have their roots in African tribal tradition and are now preserved as the artist’s earliest works.
With the help of her mother, Faith participated in the production of life-size portraits of famous figures such as Adam Clayton Powell, Wilt Chamberlain, basketball players and other Harlem personalities; for this reason, this production became known as the Harlem Renaissance.
At the same time, Faith promoted African art to college. In his classes, he taught the creation of African jewelry, clothing and pearls.
Faith Ringgold was deeply drawn to political issues, particularly those related to the exploitation of women. These political motivations, in turn, were influenced by the rise of the civil rights movement.
The artist was able to transfer to art the suffering of a community that she herself lived in her own skin.
“I became a feminist because I wanted to help my daughters, other women and aspire to more than just a place behind a good man. “- Faith Ringgold-
Ringgold thus managed to give visibility to social injustice through the paintings he made in the 1960s. Since then, his most notable works have been American People and Flag Story Quilt.
His work is mainly inspired by the works of writers James Baldwin and Amiri Baraka, who have written about discrimination and the struggle of blacks in the United States.
“No other creative field is as closed to non-white and human as the visual arts. After deciding to be an artist, the first thing I had to believe was that I, a black woman, could enter this area and in that one, besides, I could do it without sacrificing my darkness, my femininity and my humanity. ? -Faith Ringgold-
Faith expanded the field of fine arts and managed to echo sewing, fabric and composition on canvas in the art world. She was the first artist to challenge these limits and elevate the art of fabric in institutions.
The concept of these duvets evolved from the art of cloth introduced by African slaves in America, using duvets, in addition to their fundamental objective of oblivion, to preserve their memories. One way or another, these screens functioned as message boards.
Faith’s plastic approach has promoted women’s craftsmanship through these narrative duvets, in which she showed a series of images and descriptions telling the story.
Echoes of Harlem was the first of more than 30 duvets manufactured since 1980. Each is counted by adopting the structure of children’s history, and each part of the duvet corresponds to one page.
One of its most famous historical quilts is Tar Beach, where you can enjoy the representation of a family gathered on your balcony on a hot summer night.
Adults talk while children play and sleep in their blankets. The girl dreams of flying freely over all barriers. This scene is framed by the George Washington Bridge in the background.
Some of Faith’s other popular quilts are Who?S fear of Aunt Jemima? And Street Story Quilt. Who’s afraid of Aunt Jemima? She describes the life of an African woman who has become a great businesswoman.
Although she lives in New York, Faith’s work has always been far from contemporary American art, mainly because of the emphasis on black culture and racial discrimination, so it’s no surprise that her works don’t interest more conservative and elitist circles.
Faith is also known for her social activism and fought hard for the rights of African artists at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.
Her struggle materialized in the activities of the Women’s Art Committee founded by artist Poppy Johnson and art critic Lucy Lippard. As a social activist, he used art to found and develop organizations such as Where We At, which supports African-American artists.
Its Anyone Can Fly Foundation is dedicated to expanding the artistic aspect to include artists from the African community, and the foundation is dedicated to presenting African-American art teachers to children and adults.
His most recent works address prejudice in a different way; it no longer uses confrontational images to attack prejudice, but chooses to reverse prejudice by providing positive models for young African-Americans.
“You can’t sit back and wait for someone to tell you who you are. Do you need to write this, paint it and do it?. – Faith Ringgold-
Faith Ringgold became the first black woman to exhibit individually at the Spectrum Gallery in New York in 1967 and 1970.
His achievements as an artist, teacher and activist have been rewarded with numerous honors. He has received nearly 75 awards, including an honorary doctorate in fine arts.