Faith Ringgold is a notable alumni from city college. She is a famous painter, painting on different materials including fabric. She is a published author who has published 17 books for child- ren as long with her own autobiography. She is also a mixed media sculptor, performance artist and intersectional activist, best known for her narrative quilts. On Oct,8,1930, Faith Ringgold was born in Harlem Hospital NYC the youngest of three children. Her parents were decedents of working-class families displaced by the great migration. Ringgold’s mother was a fashion designer, and her father was a avid storyteller. Both raised her in an environment that would fuel her creativity. The Harlem Renaissance would play a key role in this as she would be surrounded by great art scenes. As a little girl she would also play and experiment with crayons with her mother’s support. She also learned how to sew and create art through fabric from her mother. All these influences combined would later have a major effect on Ringold’s artistic works.  Ringgold would attend city college where she received a degree in fine arts and education and an M.A in fine arts. In the mid 1950s she started teaching art in New York public schools up until the 1970s.  Over the years to come, Ringgold would use her artistic skills to express her beliefs on big issues affecting America. This would lead her to become an activist in movements like the women’s rights movement and the civil rights movement.  She begun a body of paintings in 1963 called the American People series, which portrays the civil rights movement from a female perspective.  One of the best-known and perhaps most-unsettling is “American People #20”: Die (1967), a bold representation of contemporary race riots. In the 1970s Ringgold frequently lectured at feminist art conferences and actively sought the racial Intergration of the art world in New York. She originated a demonstration against the Whiteny Museum of American art that led to the introduction of works by Betye Saar and Barbara Chase -Riboud in the 1972 sculpture biennial, and she helped win admission for Black artists to the exhibit schedule at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 Ringgold and one of her daughters founded the advocacy group Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation. In 1972 she  collabed with her mother to create a Slave Rape series of paintings inspired by Tibetan thang -kas that she viewed on a visit to museums in Amsterdam. In the 1980s Ringgold began working on “story quilts,” which became some of her most renowned works. She painted these quilts with narrative images and original stories set in the context of African American history. Her mother frequently collaborated with her on them. These works included “Who’s Afraid of Aunt Jemima?” (1984), “Sonny’s Quilt” (1986), and “Tar Beach” (1988), the latter of which Ringgold adapted into a children’s book (1991) that was named a Caldecott Honor Book in 1992. It tells the story of a young Black girl in New York City who dreams about flying. Ringgold’s later books for children included “Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky” (1992), “My Dream of Martin Luther King” (1995), “Harlem Renaissance Party” (2015), and “We Came to America” (2016). Her memoirs, We Flew over the Bridge, were published in 1995. She continued to work on quilts and other commissions, and recently in 2022 the New Musuem (New York City) held a major retrospective of her works entitled “Faith Ringgold:  American People”. Faith Ringgold in my opinion isn’t just a notable person from city college but an inspiring person as well.  Her creative works helped shed light on the harshest issues that were dividing this country. Her works helped become a voice for the voiceless and helped people see life in a new perspective. As the first female artist to give sewing, fabric, weaving and embroidery the transformation from craft to some serious subject of art, she is paving the way for future boys and girls who seek a similar path that they too can do it. Most importantly her works continue to spread across the world making an impact on the lives of many who come across them. As an art major myself it gives me hope and joy upon reading her story that someday my creative ideas and pieces could also make a difference in the lives of many and the world, and at the end of the tunnel there is light and success waiting for me if I put my mind to It.  

Links: Faith Ringgold – Wikipedia   

           Faith Ringgold | Biography, Art, Quilts, Books, & Facts | Britannica