Faith Ringgold grew up in culturally rich Haarlem with artists W.E.B. Dubois, James Baldwin, Sonny Rollins and Aaron Douglas, to name a few. Her mother was a seamstress and fashion designer whose quilts and sewing skills would inspire her daughter. Faith’s aspiration was to be an artist, and the people she contacted were “living examples of the endless possibilities for creativity that art could offer.” Ringgold participated through her art projects in protests for civil rights and women’s rights. An African-American woman and a woman artist starting in the 1960’s, she was aware she had two strikes against her. She also recognized that her “classical tradition was African not Greek.”
1967 The Flag is Bleeding, 72”x 96”
“I became fascinated with the ability of art to document the time, place, and cultural identity of the artist. How could I, as an African American woman artist, document what was happening around me?” “For me it is important to make work about peril if it’s your story. One can find beauty in horror that you can share through your art and ideally effect change.” Her first series, painted from 1963 through 1967, was called American People. Works in this series made direct reference to the race riots of the time. “The Flag is Bleeding” (1967) is one of that series. In 1972, she was arrested at an exhibition for desecrating the flag. Ringgold began changing her focus to issues facing women and women artists. In 1971 she was co-founder of Where We At?, a group of African-American women artists. “The Long Road” (1972) was a mural for the Women’s House of Detention at Riker’s Island. In 1974, Ringgold was a founding member of the National Black Feminist Organization.
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1972 The Long Road, Riker’s Island
n 1973, Ringgold resigned from teaching in the public schools in New York to devote all of her time to making art. With her mother, Wille Posey, she started making soft sculpture, African inspired masks and life size dolls. “Buba and Beba, Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro” (1976 ) was a performance piece with music, singing and dance. Students from Wilson College, a liberal arts college in Chambersburg, Pennsylvania, where Ringgold was artist-in-residence, wore a series of masks made by Ringgold and her mother. Viewers of the performance were invited to participate. The purpose of the performance as described by Ringgold was to enact an African belief that ancestors were held in a state of limbo until they could be released with singing and dancing. They then would “return to the community in search of a new life.” Slavery was represented by cowrie shells in Beba’s hair and the cotton balls which surround the figures. The story she imaged was that the deceased were Buba who died of an overdose, and his wife Beba who died of grief. Ringgold wrote Buba would be resurrected as a “more sensitive man without dependence on drugs, and Beba becomes a new woman liberated and aware.” The standing figures “Moma and Nana” are the mourners who also will participate in the joy of resurrection. Although a piece about death, it was also about a new life and new hope. Ringgold imagined this work having a happy ending.
1976 Buba and Beba, Wake and Resurrection of the Bicentennial Negro
The original intention of this article a celebration of Juneteenth, the end of slavery in 1865, and a joyful work by Ringgold was selected. George Floyd’s murder and the enormous ground swell for reform and change made that image seem appropriate. However, the murder of Rayshard Brooks brought the 1976 Ringgold work to mind. On seeing this image for the first time, a viewer today could likely not see anything positive. Without the joyful performance that went with it, or knowing Ringgold imagined a happy ending, this could be dated 2020. Civil rights legislation was enacted in 1964, but African-American men and women are still being mourned by their mothers, family and friends. We need to keep the pressure on to see the much needed positive change, and we must vote in November.
Beverly Hall Smith was a professor of art history for 40 years. Since retiring with her husband Kurt to Chestertown six years ago, she has taught art history classes at WC-ALL and Chesapeake College’s Institute for Adult Learning. She is also an artist whose work is sometimes in exhibitions at Chestertown RiverArts and she paints sets for the Garfield Center for the Arts.
Bettye Walters says
Thank you for this very informative and interesting article. I’ve long been a fan of Ringgold’s and have wondered if she had roots in Chestertown. I first became aware of her work in the late 90s at an exhibition at the Baltimore museum of art. The exhibit focused on her quilts. I especially remember one called “Dancing at the Louvre”! Thank you again for this article and have wondered if she had roots in Chestertown. Thank you again for this article
Beverly Smith says
Actually Faith’s maiden name was Posey. She had two marriages. The first in 1950 to Robert Earl Wallace produced her two daughters Michelle faith Wallace and Barbara Faith Wallace. They divorced in 1954 because he was heroin addict. I wondered if her story about Buba’s death in the 1976 work might be a reference to that. She married Burdette Ringgold in 1962 . I believe he was from New Jersey. I did look him up because of the Chestertown connection but did not find any Maryland references to him.
Beryl Smith says
Something that Faith Ringgold does not comment on now is that early in 1977/78 Faith was one of the artists who exhibited in the Douglass College Library as part of the Women Artists Series, an innovative program, one of the very first to show the art of women in an alternative space. This was done at a time when women artists were all too often denied exhibitions in any public spaces–those being given primarily only to men. Although I was not at that time the curator of the series, I later became acquainted with Faith’s work. In a 15 year celebration of the founding of the series Faith contributed “California Dah #5” to our exhibit. Only one problem, she was in California at the time. Coincidentally, my husband was going to a conference in California and she allowed him to pick up the piece from her apartment, which he did. He was astounded because she never asked him to sign a receipt–just gave him the rolled canvas and he was on his way. Years later, when reminded of that “adventure” we laughed over her trust.
Beverly Smith says
I plan to do another article on Faith Ringgold which will highlight more of her work and life, which is exceptional. I had planned to a happy one for this article such as “Woman Dancing on the George Washington Bridge, to celebrate Juneteenth. As you read in the article I felt I needed to change the dynamic.
I thank you for your information about the 1977/78 information about her exhibition with other women artists at Douglass College. If it isn’t already in my notes on her, it will be now. I did want to continue talking about her life in this article as I wanted to concentrate on her civil and women’s rights work. In this case, especially the civil rights.
I have seen many of exhibitions and works, and have been fortunate to have heard her talk on at least two occasions. I even have a signed, by her in person, copy of Tar Beach. I too have a great love of her work and great admiration for her as a person.
I am so glad you ha the opportunity to meet her. What a wonderful experience. From hearing her talks I would expect her to trust you. That is the impression she gave.