Images of faith ringgold tar beach

Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach incorporates traditional painting technique with her signature quilting.

Tar Beach is the first quilted painting in this series which follows Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a young girl growing up in Harlem.

Ringgold took a lot of inspiration from her own life to create this character and story, in hopes that it would resonate stronger with the audience. So, if the painting gives you a sense of familiarity and warmth, that’s by design.

Tar Beach is what is known as a story quilt. It combines paint on canvas with quilted fabric material. Story quilts ultimately became one of Ringgold’s signature styles.

Images of faith ringgold tar beach quilt

Making art in this way only helps with Ringgold’s desire to have her art seem accessible to a younger audience. I can imagine being a kid and walking up to this and thinking it looked a lot like something I’d have in my room.

And even if I didn’t inherently understand what it was about, it would still resonate with me in some shape or form because of the