OPRAH WE LOVE YOU
by Faith Ringgold
On May12, 2011 I received two awards in one day from Women’s Organizations, which inspired in me to make a new commitment to support Women and Families in Crisis.
My first award was at breakfast with the New York Women's Foundation: Celebrating Women 2011 at the Hilton. The second award was at dinner with Womanspace 17th Annual Barbara Boggs Sigmund Award: Celebrating Women Who Inspire Us to Greatness at The Westin Princeton at Forrestal Village in Princeton, N.J.
I had just received the OPRAH WE LOVE YOU silkscreen prints, edition of 25, from Curlee Holton and four of his students who printed them at EPI (Experimental Print Workshop) at Lafayette College in Easton, Pennsylvania. The students (Evan McGovern, Annis Zheng, Sarah Strong and Lauren Vassalo) had the assignment to produce the prints as a term project.
Grace Matthews and I (Faith Ringgold) created the original imagery for the print from a Kuba design adapted from the art of the Kuba People of the Belgian Congo. This design, as does much of African Art, lends itself to collaborative art making. Together we have used the Kuba design (8 triangles in a square) in quilt workshops around the country and in Canada with as many as 24 people collaboratively participating in the Quilt.
I was inspired to create OPRAH WE LOVE YOU for a tribute book to Oprah Winfrey by Janelle Dowell at www.BlackArtInAmerica.com. Now that I have prints of the original design, what better way to give tribute to Oprah than to donate them to Women's Organizations in support of Women and Families in Crisis?
The OPRAH WE LOVE YOU prints will be available at the Anyone Can Fly Foundation’s Annual exhibition, sale and auction at ACA gallery on October 24, 2011. See www.anyonecanfly.org for more information.
-- Faith Ringgold
