Multimedia artist Faith Ringgold passed away on April 12, 2024. She was 93 years old and renowned for depicting the African American experience often using pictorial quilts.
During the 1960s and 1970s Ringgold played an instrumental role in the organization of protests against museums that had neglected the work of women and people of color. In 1971 she was a founder of the artist collective for Black women, Where We At. Ringgold was also an author and illustrator of children’s books. It is through one of her books that she first came to my attention.
During the early 1990’s my sister was working on her bachelor’s degree in childhood education and one day wanted to fervently show me one of the children’s books she was reading. It was Tar Beach. Set in the Harlem of 1939, it tells the story of Cassie who dreams of being free and going anywhere she wants. One day her wish comes true when the stars help her to fly across the New York City. I was immediately taken with the book because the George Washington Bridge was prominently featured. I grew up near that bridge and spent many magnificent summers biking and walking across. My sister knew of my love for the bridge. However, I was also intrigued to learn the book had started out as a story quilt.
Ringgold, in 1988, created a story quilt titled Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach, which was part of a series, Women on a Bridge, that depicted women, “…actually flying; they are just free, totally. They take their liberation by confronting this huge masculine icon—the bridge.” A few weeks before my sister shared Tar Beach with me, I had serendipitously read Alice Walker’s short story, Everyday Use, for my American Literature class.
Everyday Use is set during the late 1960s or early 1970s in the rural south and tells the story of a family reunion where the characters contend with their opposing perspectives on their cultural roots and the meaning of heritage. Is heritage best represented by everyday use or by historical display of objects[1]? The story examines these ideas through quilts, an African American tradition that are a vibrant part of American history.
Enslaved women first created quilts communally out of a necessity to supplement their scarce bedding. Members of the Underground Railroad used quilts to send messages: quilts made with black cloth were hung to mark a safe house of refuge, while other quilts acted as maps, marking escape routes. Quilts also recorded family events such as births, weddings, and geographic locations. Meaningfully, quilting served as a creative outlet for the women to claim their identity and legacy during a time when literacy was illegal for them. I think this is exactly what Ringgold and Walker were connecting with in their own art. And Ringgold successfully does both of what Walker explored in her story: heritage through display and “everyday use.”
Tar Beach and Everyday Use will forever be linked for me: I can’t think of one without thinking of the other. I also can’t help but to also think about how both, whether through words or illustrations, tap into the importance and connection of the handmade and heritage.
In this increasingly exhaustive era of digitizing, monetizing, branding, and gentrifying, the cultivation and maintenance of heritage is becoming more difficult. Just last week I saw several stories about how some colonizing Americans moved to Mexico and are trying to suppress local customs. Similar things are happening in Puerto Rico, and be sure to read the chapter on Harlem in the book, Vanishing New York.
The transmission of customs from generation to generation are essential to any group’s identity as well as to foster heritage. For it to flourish, it must indeed be a part of “everyday use.”
Thank you, Faith Ringgold, for cultivating heritage and fostering my own imagination with your beautifully empathetic art. Enjoy your own flight among the stars over New York City.
Sources:
Press, Associated. “Faith Ringgold, Pioneering Black Artist, Activist and Storyteller, Dies at 93.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 14 Apr. 2024, http://www.pbs.org/newshour/arts/faith-ringgold-pioneering-black-artist-activist-and-storyteller-dies-at-93.
“An Evolution of Expression.” National Museum of African American History and Culture, 17 Nov. 2023, nmaahc.si.edu/explore/stories/evolution-expression.
“Faith Ringgold: Woman on a Bridge #1 of 5: Tar Beach.” The Guggenheim Museums and Foundation, 2023, http://www.guggenheim.org/artwork/3719.
Fox, Margalit. “Faith Ringgold Dies at 93; Wove Black Life into Quilts and Children’s Books.” The New York Times, The New York Times, 13 Apr. 2024, http://www.nytimes.com/2024/04/13/arts/faith-ringgold-dead.html.
“We Wanted a Revolution: Black Radical Women, 1965–85.” Brooklyn Museum, 2017, http://www.brooklynmuseum.org/opencollection/exhibitions/3347.
“Through the Folk Art of Quilting, Tracy Vaughn-Manly Works to Preserve Black American History and Culture.” Weinberg College News, 14 Feb. 2023, news.weinberg.northwestern.edu/2023/02/14/tracy-vaughn-manly-works-to-preserve-quilting-history-at-northwestern/.
American, Faith Ringgold. “Faith Ringgold: Street Story Quilt.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1 Jan. 1985, http://www.metmuseum.org/art/collection/search/485416.
Bryant, Marie Claire. “Underground Railroad Quilt Codes: What We Know, What We Believe, and What Inspires Us.” Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage, 3 May 2019, folklife.si.edu/magazine/underground-railroad-quilt-codes.
[1] One of the first exhibitions at El Museo Del Barrio was The Art of Needlework which showcased the artistry of Puerto Rican women—the display of everyday use if you will. What started out as a local custom was then gentrified, monetized, and eventually abandoned with the advent of machinery. This exhibition happened about three years before Alice Walker published Everyday Use.
Edwin Roman 