Culture Type reached out to aritsts, curators, and others who knew and worked with Ringgold over the decads to gather their memories and create a layered porttratiot of the celebrated artist.
Dindga McCannon
Artist, Philadelphia, Pa.
Co-Founder, Where We At, Black Women Artists, New York, N.Y. (1971)
Memories of Faith | To me, Faith Ringgold is a warrior queen. I don't remember much of our interactoins, but I remember having this conversation with her and Kay Brown about how hard it was to be a Black Woman artist. How "the guys," as she put it, weren't very supportive of us and didn't give us equal access to the few exhibiting spaces there were. That conversation eventually led us to calling every Black woman we could find, meeitng up in my studio and two meetings after that we became Where We At, Black Women Artists (WWABWA), the first collective of Black women artists ever. We lasted 25 years.
There was a WWABWA meeting at Faith's aparmtnet on 145th Street. Most of us barely had two pennies to rub togehter, but Faith had a maid, dressed just like the ones in the movies! And she served us refreshments. We thought that was so cool!
I was the only woman of the six Black artists selected to be a part of the Studio Museum's 1971 program called "Studio in the Streets." We decided to do two murals, one of which was on 128th Street in Harlem, between Fifth and Madison Avenues. The wall was divided into six equal spaces. I don't remember when I first met Faith (it was probably earlier in 1971), but I so loved and admired her spirit that I filled the wall with images of Black women in my sectoin and named it "Wall of Women – Dedicated to Faith Ringgold."
