Famous artist, author among honorees

To honor the originality, beauty, imagination and multiple dimensions of women’s lives, the National Women’s History Project has chosen Women’s Art: Women’s Vision as the 2008 theme for National Women’s History Month.

To ensure that a diversity of art and artists are represented, the 2008 honorees were selected based on their art, their vision, their art form, their cultural background, the region in which they live, and the quality and passion of the nomination submitted.

Spotlight this week on:

Faith Ringgold

Faith Ringgold, a well-known national painter, illustrator, author and quilter, was born in 1930 in Harlem, N.Y. Her artistic career began more than 35 years ago as a painter. Today, she is best known for her painted story quilts — art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling.

Ringgold has written and illustrated more than 11 children’s books, which she uses as inspiring vehicles to communicate her ideas and vision.

She says her goal is to give back to children some of the joyful magic she has received from them. Among her more well-known children’s books are: “Tar Beach,” “Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky,” and “My Dream of Martin Luther King.”

Her stories of fictional heroines present images that encourage children to “take flight” and follow their dreams. They are often painted in a folk style, with no indications of perspective, two-dimensional patterning, rich colors, and no shading to indicate three-dimensional volume in the forms.

Her mother and grandmother promoted African-American culture, and she had many wonderful role models as neighbors. Among them were Thurgood Marshall, Dinah Washington, Mary McLeod Bethune, Aaron Douglass and Duke Ellington.

Ringgold uses her art to tell her own story, and in collaboration with her mother, began to sew fabric borders around her paintings, instead of stretching the canvas over wooden stretchers in the traditional manner.

Her art concerns itself with serious issues, but is resplendent with affirmations; it deals with harsh realities, but in the final analysis is connected to following personal dreams and overcoming all obstacles, with a soaring and unstoppable spirit.

As well as her concerns with race and gender, Ringgold uses subjects such as the Oklahoma City bombing and multi-cultural communities such as Crown Heights, which has 12 different ethnic heritages in residence. Her work aims to celebrate the uniqueness and commonality of all cultures.

In the 1990s, Ringgold continued to craft images dealing with the issues of slavery, racism and sexism in her work, but combined with her folk-inspired style some aspects of modern and contemporary painting, such as abstract expressionism and pop art.

Like many contemporary painters, she often uses a square format for her images, rather than the rectangular format generally used prior to the 20th century.

Her imagery is imaginative, and her forms are highly inventive. Her wonderful images include “Sunflowers,” “Cotton Fields,” “Black Birds,” and “Quilting Bees.”

Ringgold has exhibited in major museums in the United States, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa and the Middle East.

Her artwork is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Studio Museum in Harlem, the Guggenheim and the Metropolitan Museum of Art.