From tar beach to star-flying
The Artdog Image of Interest Faith Ringgold’s story quilt Tar Beach (Part 1 from the Woman on a Bridge series), 1988, rewards some time spent looking at it closely. The quilt has enough going on in it to provide several of the illustrations for Ringgold’s 1991 children’s book, also titled Tar Beach. The book Tar Beach is a semi-autobiographical account of a little girl, Cassie Louise Lightfoot, in Harlem, New York in the 1930s (not coincidentally, Faith grew up there during the 1930s). At night in the summer, Cassie sleeps…