Faith Ringgold: The Power of Silence

The point of writing this publication was not simply to learn more about Faith Ringgold, but more importantly to further educate students on how one can learn so much from looking at a piece of art.  When observing the public at museums over the years, it saddens me that most people truly don’t take the time to understand and value the work.  Simply admiring artwork for its beauty is just scratching the surface, while taking time to view it may reveal the meaning and symbolism deeper within.  I found that after I gave my presentation on Faith Ringgold, where I analyzed the works of art above, the students were shocked as to how much was truly being said silently by her paintbrush.  

As I hope to be a future college-level educator, I took many elements of how Professor Dale Shields conducts himself as a professor which I will carry with me for the rest of my life.  He is a remarkable man who saw my passion for art history and gave me the confidence be believe that someday I could be in his shoes as a professor.  

Kailee Elizabeth Cross

Professor Shields and me

 

Faith Ringgold

Rest In Peace ~ April 23rd 2024

 

Faith Ringgold, a multimedia artist whose pictorial quilts depicting the African American experience gave rise to a second distinguished career as a writer and illustrator of children’s books, died on Saturday at her home in Englewood, N.J. She was 93.

Her death was confirmed by her daughter Barbara Wallace.

 

 

Faith Ringgold at her home in Englewood, N.J., in 2020. She was best known for what she called “story quilts”: large panels of unstretched canvas, painted with narrative scenes in vivid acrylics. Credit: Meron Tekie Menghistab for The New York Times

 

“Among her many laurels are a Guggenheim fellowship, National Endowment for the Arts awards for painting and sculpture, and a spate of honorary doctorates.

Her other books include her memoir, “We Flew Over the Bridge,” published by Little, Brown & Company in 1995.

In addition to her daughter Barbara, a linguist, Ms. Ringgold is survived by another daughter, Michele Wallace, a prominent feminist writer and cultural critic; three grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. Her husband, Burdette Ringgold, died in 2020.

Though Ms. Ringgold had felt the need to draw and paint from the time she was a girl, she said late in life that her career sprang from an even more urgent imperative.

As she told an interviewer in 2008, “If I woke up white in America, I wouldn’t be an artist.”

761aea11941b0806fae4c0060c7e1f91Works Cited:

 

Lewis, Samella. African American Art & Artists. N.p.: University of California, 2003. Print.

Lewis, Samella. Art: African American. New York: Harcourt Brace Jovanovich, 1978. Print.

Patton, Sharon F. African-American Art. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1998. Print.

Powell, Richard J. Black Art and Culture in the 20th Century. New York, NY: Thames & Hudson, 1997. Print.

Ringgold, Faith, and Josephine Withers. “Faith Ringgold: Art.” Feminist Studies 6.1 (1980): 207-11. Print.

Ringgold, Faith. “Coming to the Jones Road.” Feminist Studies 33.2 (2007): 350-60. Print.

Ringgold, Faith. We Flew Over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold. Boston: Little, Brown, 1995. Print.

http://news.yahoo.com/faith-ringgolds-controversial-art-dc-museum-175542384.html

http://ppaintinga.com/paintings-by-faith-ringgold/  

https://www.npr.org/2024/04/13/685930840/faith-ringgold-quilt-and-visual-artist-dies-at-93?fbclid=IwAR3ghmfobgbsTn1Emo99ssnd5QHV3sdK3ZBlkLFt8iWPPFHfP8eDwDQXoNw

COPYRIGHT © Faith Ringgold / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York, Courtesy ACA Galleries, New York

© 2023 Faith Ringgold.

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