A multi-media presentation introduced Meet the Masters students to artist Faith Ringgold. Through music and a slide show, the students learned about Faith’s childhood in Harlem, her time as a fashion model for her mother’s designs and her path through college to becoming an artist and an art teacher. They were shown some of her paintings and encouraged to analyze the components (colors, patterns, frames). They were taught about quilts, painted quilts and visual story telling, where a memory is painted and then surrounded with cut and sewn fabric to become a story quilt. Some of the vocabulary terms emphasized included horizontal and vertical, frame and abstract, and shape and pattern.
Faith uses bright colors and patterns and paints happy memories of her childhood. The student artists were asked to think about something special that they enjoy to be the center of their creation. They created oil pastel pictures surrounded by cut-paper shapes to make a story quilt in the style of Faith Ringgold.
The 4th grade artists chose subjects they were passionate about such as surfing, basketball, baseball, the Eiffel Tower, and the beach.
We think Faith would be impressed by these unique story quilts!
Learn more about Faith Ringgold and see other examples of Meet the Masters student artwork.