Existing comment:
Faith Ringgold, born 1930
Faith Ringgold based her 1998 artist's book, Seven Passages to a Flight on autobiographical memories drawn from her own Harlem childhood. Searching for a way to express the experiences of African American women, she started working in textiles in the 1970s. Her innovative story quilts draw inspiration from Tibetan "tankas," African piece work, and black American quilting traditions. Long an activist for racial and gender equality, Ringgold used flight here as a metaphor for overcoming the challenges that she had encountered. The bridge, which she could see from her tar-covered Harlem rooftop, symbolizes opportunity. "Anyone can fly," she writes in her children's book, Tar Beach. "All you have to do is have somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way." The imagery of flying, Ringgold has explained, "is about achieving a seemingly impossible goal with no more guarantee of success than an avowed commitment to do it."
1998 |