Faith Ringgold Inspired Family Portraits
Where do we live? Who is in our family?
Recently, the first grade class read Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach. While reading the book, we payed close attention to the setting, and family members.
Does this place look like Chapel Hill? Where is her home? Who is in her family?
After the story, we discussed all the different kinds of homes we live in. We also shared who is in our families, and what that word means to us.
Family Portrait
Creating pictures of their family, and where they live, students learned foreground, middle ground and background. We then mounted the drawings on large pieces of construction paper, creating the boarder for our “quilts”. Students then created patterns with cut pieces of paper, mimicking patterns in quilting.
This work shows one side of the family in the United States, while the other is in China.
Quilting
Ringgold is a mixed media artist, often incorporating quilting into her work. Tar Beach’s illustrations are highly detailed, mixed media, and incorporate quilting. Quilting contains elements of touch, and it can be hard to visualize how it is made only seeing a photograph. Fortunately, I brought in my own quilted art, both self made and bought. This way students could inspect these pieces, better understanding the process.
Reflections
I loved seeing all the variations in this project, and how different each student’s art was. This was clear in the images they drew, as well as how they approached patterns. Some students repeated patterns around the entire boarder, while others spread them out. The discussions we had defining family were important, helping students reflect on who is important to them, and what their relationship is. By doing this, it allows students to think outside the nuclear family unit which is so often presented as the norm. If I were to do this project again, I would use fabric for the quilting. The paper mimicked the process, but the connection was lost between fabric and paper.
Categories Fall 2019, Student Teacher Blog