Faith Ringgold Self-Portrait

Faith Ringgold 8 Oct 1930 - 12 Apr 2024

Born New York City

Faith Ringgold based her 1995 artist's book, Seven Passages to a Flight, and this accompanying quilt, on memories of her Harlem childhood. Her mother, Madame Willi Posey, a fashion designer, taught Ringgold to sew at a young age. In the 1970s, the artist began creating innovative story quilts that draw inspiration from Tibetan tankas, African piece work, and African American quilts. Her textiles challenge traditional artistic hierarchies favoring painting and sculpture.

An activist for racial and gender equality, Ringgold used the bridge, which she could see from her tar-covered Harlem rooftop, to symbolize opportunity. For her, flying, a metaphor for overcoming challenges, "is about achieving a seemingly impossible goal with no more guarantee of success than an avowed commitment to do it." Ringgold explains further in her children's book Tar Beach (1991), "Anyone can fly. All you have to do is have somewhere to go that you can't get to any other way."

Credit: National Portrait Gallery, Smithsonian Institution