Faith Ringgold: From Story Quilts to Picture Books in Tar Beach

The renowned African American artist Faith Ringgold (1930–2024) navigated through various artistic mediums throughout her extensive career. Initially recognized in the art community during the early 1960s for her oil paintings, Ringgold gained notable acclaim for her American People Series, created between 1963 and 1967. This series emerged as an artistic response to the Civil Rights Movement, often addressing the issues of racism deeply embedded in American society.

Beginning in the early 1970s, Ringgold shifted her focus to sculptural works, creating stylized masks and soft sculptures primarily made from fabric. This newfound interest in fabric art led to her development of quilts. By 1983, she began inscribing narratives on her quilts, coining the term story quilts. These quilts uniquely integrated painting with patchwork quilting, often featuring hand-written stories that accompanied the visual imagery.

In the 1990s, her exploration of artistry continued as she ventured into creating picture books, inspired by her previous work with story quilts.

The Tar Beach Quilts

In the late 1980s, Ringgold embarked on creating Woman on a Bridge, a noteworthy series of five story quilts featuring the George Washington Bridge. Having lived near this landmark for most of her life, she often viewed it as her bridge. In 1988, she completed Tar Beach, the inaugural piece of the series, followed by another rendition, Tar Beach 2, released in 1990.

Both Tar Beach story quilts portray panels illustrating the experiences of a girl named Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a character heavily inspired by Ringgold’s own childhood in Harlem during the 1930s.

Tar Beach Picture Book

Following the completion of her Tar Beach story quilts, Ringgold chose to transform these artworks into a picture book titled Tar Beach. She successfully integrated many visual elements and narrative sections from the quilts while deepening the story’s narrative in the book format. The book, released by Crown Books for Young Readers in 1991, received widespread acclaim, marking the beginning of Ringgold’s career as an author of children’s literature. Notably, she earned both a Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration and a Caldecott Honor Award for this work.

In the book, Cassie cherishes moments shared with her family and neighbors on their “tiny rooftop,” affectionately termed “Tar Beach.” Her parents set up a mattress on the roof for Cassie and her younger brother while adults engage in conversation and card games. To Cassie, “Sleeping on Tar Beach was magical. Lying on the roof in the night, with stars and skyscraper buildings all around me, made me feel rich, like I owned all that I could see.” In her daydreams, Cassie imagines she can fly, with illustrations showing her soaring over New York City, claiming iconic landmarks like the George Washington Bridge as her own.

Ringgold illustrates the rooftop as a magical threshold where reality intertwines with imagination. It serves as a setting for the family to dine and socialize with the neighbors: “Tonight we’re going up to Tar Beach. Mommy is roasting peanuts and frying chicken, and Daddy will bring home a watermelon. Mr. and Mrs. Honey will bring the beer and their old green card table.”

Conversely, the rooftop represents a launching pad for Cassie’s nighttime escapades, symbolizing a safe haven for her to unleash her imagination. In these flights of fancy, she aspires to assist her father in overcoming the real-world discrimination he faces, resulting in increased self-worth for Cassie as she believes she can enhance her family’s situation. The rooftop is depicted as a nurturing environment where Cassie feels secure, free to explore her imagination and develop her self-esteem.

Ringgold’s Other Picture Books

Building upon the success of Tar Beach, Ringgold continued to pen and illustrate an array of picture books for children. Among her other notable works are Aunt Harriet’s Underground Railroad in the Sky (1992), Dinner at Aunt Connie’s House (1995), My Dream of Martin Luther King (1996), If a Bus Could Talk: The Story of Rosa Parks (1999), Cassie’s Word Quilt (2002), and We Came to America (2016), her final offering to the genre. Ultimately, she authored and illustrated 17 picture books.

Though the art community didn’t fully embrace her picture books, Ringgold remained unconcerned. As reflected in her memoir, We Flew over the Bridge: The Memoirs of Faith Ringgold, her true intention lay in creating these works for children rather than the art establishment:

Catch Faith Ringgold reading her enchanting story Tar Beach in the video below:

Author’s bio:

Mark I. West serves as a professor of English at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, teaching courses in children’s and young adult literature while also fulfilling various administrative roles, including Interim Chair of the Department of Art and Art History.