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Teaching tolerance through art: art can make the world more peaceful

Arts & Activities, Feb, 2004 by Karen Skophammer

MATERIALS

* Resource books and slides of Faith Ringgold's work

* Rulers

* Markers

* 8 1/2" x 11" tag boom or white paper

* Pencils

* Paint

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

Students will ...

* identify artist Faith Ringgold and her book Tar Beach, and be able to tell what inspired her quilts.

* tell his or her story through a drawing on a quilt-block paper.

* create a border on the quilt that unifies the entire block-square stories.

* feel acceptance and tolerance of one another's stories and feelings,

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The above quote is the opening statement of a talk given by Faith Ringgold at our local art museum in Fort Dodge, Iowa. We are a small community of about 25,000, and I consider it amazing that Ringgold, a world-renowned artist, would spend a Sunday afternoon (Sept. 8, 2001) lecturing and discussing her work and her life in a rural area. She has quite a number of works on display at our museum.

It is also amazing how much I "feel" her work when I look at it. Just by looking at it, it teaches tolerance and acceptance. "As an artist, you can communicate things that you feel and see. You are a voice. You have a power to create." Faith Ringgold truly is a voice.

Ringgold talked about writing an autobiography back in her "unknown" days, titled Being My Own Woman. She couldn't get it published, what with her being unknown, unaccepted and, I guess you could say, not tolerated. In 1995, her autobiography was finally published.

A former teacher, Ringgold understands children and their problems. She feels that art is a healer, that it reaches across the United States, across the world teaching tolerance. She became an artists for the same reason she became a writer--she wanted to tell her story.

Ever since she was little, Ringgold felt the need to communicate her ideas through art. She tells stories about her life as a black female artist. She began by painting, but didn't feel painting was warm enough. She was inspired by black art and wanted to write stories. Her first quilt, Echoes of Harlem, gave the feeling of writing through art, telling her story.

Expressing a stow is an outer for many emotions. "The story-quilt grew out of my need to tell stones not with pictures alone, but with words," she said. It was in 1983 that Ringgold began to write stories on her quilts. They are dilemma tales--problems with solutions--which are an African tradition in which the storyteller does not make judgments. They teach tolerance by not preaching.

In 1988, Ringgold created the original story quilt for Tar Beach. This became the basis for the popular book, Tar Beach, the 1991 Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Corretta Scott King Award for illustration.

The quilt shows and lets you feel what it was like to grow up in Harlem. The family is on the roof eating and cooling off. Ringgold remembers going up on the apartment roofs ("tar beaches") during the summer to cool off. She said it was a time when it was safe to be on the roof looking up at the open sky. Families went up there to eat, sleep, play games, etc. Everyone knew each other and accepted one another as "family."

Ringgold feels that quilters can quilt the world into a better place. "We are all artists. Piecing is our art. We brought it straight from Africa. We did it after a hard day's work in the fields to keep our sanity and our beds warm, and bring beauty to our lives. I put women together as quilters to say that they are piecing together freedom in this country. Now we can do our real quilting, our real art--making this world piece up right." By learning and understanding other people's stories, we can teach tolerance in a most profound way.

After reading Tar Beach, I had my fourth- and fifth-grade students create their own story quilts. (This project could be done with most any grade level.) Each student drew a picture of a scene from his or her life and then put a stylized border around it. The students wrote words if they chose to do so. The "quilts" caused the students to be very insightful.

While looking at one another's quilts, the students felt what I felt when I looked at Ringgold's works. They felt acceptance and tolerance of one another's stories and feelings. What a great experience for the students!

The quilted pieces were hung in a grouping in our lunchroom to create one giant quilt. The students were really interested in each piece and how it worked together to form the whole work of art.

All of the above took place before Sept. 11, 2001. As I look back at Ringgold's talk at the museum, I feel what she said is even more important now. She talked about peace amongst the races. We are now talking about a peace in the world scheme. Because of that, I had students create "PEACE" posters on which they could use no words. I wanted them to think of how they could get their message of peace across to every person in the world via illustration. By avoiding the use of text, the image had to say it all.

The planning stage of the posters involves sketching different ideas on small paper. Then color and medium was given consideration. The students could pick whatever they chose to convey their messages. We ended up with some very outstanding work.

Teaching tolerance through art: art can make the world more peaceful

Arts & Activities, Feb, 2004 by Karen Skophammer

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