How Female Artists Address Racism

Faith Ringgold ~ her life as a black woman in America

Faith Ringgold was born in 1930 in Harlem, New York City. She crafted her first quilt, "Echoes of Harlem," with her mother in 1980 (About Faith Ringgold). She was one of the first artists to use text in her artwork to send a more direct message. Her work has inspired numerous other artists (see "Modern Female Quilters" below). Ringgold's work is highly praised; she has received 23 Honorary Doctorates for her art. Ringgold wrote her children's book "Tar Beach" in 1991, inspired by her story quilt also called "Tar Beach" (About Faith Ringgold). Her art draws from her experience as a black woman growing up in Harlem, allowing people to connect with her story and giving people a better understanding of how racism has affected her personally. Similarly to our piece, Faith Ringgold depicts faces of African-Americans in her work. It allows the viewer to connect to the piece, as humans are drawn to other human faces and can empathize with a face rather than abstract patterns or words. As Ringgold puts it, "The struggle was one thing when you talk about it, another thing when you picture it" (Blackwell, 2013).

Our Inspiration

"Maya's Quilt of Life" 1989

(Art by Faith Ringgold)

The piece by Faith Ringgold shown above depicts a black woman's face with such detail, it seems almost as if it were a photograph. It is a perfect example of how Ringgold re-writes the narrative of black women. The viewer associates nature, calm, aesthetics, and humanness with the black woman, which is a stark contrast to the negative portrayals of black women in minstrel shows, with which Ringgold has expressed her discontent.

"Who's Afraid of Aunt Jemima?" 1983

(Art by Faith Ringgold)

The story quilt by Faith Ringgold shown above was extremely influential. The piece draws from her true experiences as a black woman, but also her imagination. It gives a part autobiographical, part fictional story of Aunt Jemima. It rewrites the negative stereotype from which the Aunt Jemima logo/character originated - being subservient to white families. It changes her story to one of a successful entrepreneur. Ringgold was unhappy with the amount of negative portrayals of African-Americans, such as Aunt Jemima.

These two pieces inspired our quilt because our goal is for the viewer to empathize with the victims of police brutality and share their LIFE stories because too many victims are reduced to numbers and figures. The victims of police brutality have life stories that need to be heard. We are creating our quilt to commemorate victims of police brutality and to prevent people from forgetting the lives that have been lost to police brutality.

Faith Ringgold ~ activism efforts

Faith Ringgold has been an extremely influential activist. She has portrayed many issues in her art including civil rights, race relations, gender, social class, poverty, racism, feminism, and other more period-specific issues such as the Vietnam War (Blackwell, 2013). She represented these issues through her art, but also through protests. Being an artist, she wanted to see African-American artists and female artists represented in museums just as frequently as white male artists. She led a famous protest at the Whitney Museum with Poppy Johnson and Lucy Lippard. The museum excluded women and African-Americans from their exhibits (Tan, 2019). They created disruptions in the museum such as singing, dancing, blowing whistles, chanting, and leaving feminine hygiene products and raw eggs all over the floor. Her efforts resulted in Betye Saar and Barbara Chase-Riboud being the first black women to be included in the Whitney Sculpture Biennial (Tan, 2019).

Her reason for activism:

"When I was in elementary school I used to see reproductions of Horace Pippin's 1942 painting called John Brown Going to His Hanging in my textbooks. I didn't know Pippin was a black person. No one ever told me that. I was much, much older before I found out that there was at least one black artist in my history books. Only one. Now that didn’t help me. That wasn’t good enough for me. How come I didn’t have that source of power? It is important. That’s why I am a black artist. It is exactly why I say who I am." (Holton, 2004)
“I remember when I was young and I would go into a gallery to show my work, and the gallery dealer would look at my legs and not my art.” (Blackwell, 2013)
Ringgold wanted to rewrite the narrative surrounding African-Americans. There were too many negative stereotypes being portrayed. These images were unfair, untrue, and dehumanizing. Ringgold wanted to use her art to portray the beauty, the life experiences, the pain and suffering, the hopes and dreams, and ultimately the humanity of black women.