Tar Beach

Faith Ringgold (American, b. 1934)
Tar Beach (Part I from the Woman on a Bridge series), 1988. Acrylic on canvas, bordered with printed, painted, quilted, and pieced cloth, 74 5/8 x 68 1/2 inches (189.5 x 174 cm).
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, Gift, Mr. and Mrs. Gus and Judith Lieber 88.3620
image:

Once again I am going to try to get myself back into the habit of paying attention to my blog. I am thinking about moving to wordpress (so much more capability) though, so you may soon find Art of the Day in a new location.

Faith Ringgold creates story quilts, "a traditional American craft associated with women’s communal work that also has roots in African culture". Her focus is on narrative and not on what be called aesthetic perfection. Her work has a folk-art quality that brings color, design and story to the viewer's eye.

Tar Beach 'depicts the fantasies of its spirited heroine and narrator Cassie Louise Lightfoot, who, on a summer night in Harlem, flies over the George Washington Bridge. “Sleeping on Tar Beach was magical . . .” explains Cassie in the text on the quilt, “only eight years old and in the third grade and I can fly. That means I am free to go wherever I want to for the rest of my life.”' --Nancy Spector, Guggenheim

Ringgold also writes and illustrates children's books.

Winter

Paolo Ventura (Italian, b.1968)
Winter Stories #9
image: http://www.paoloventura.com/work/winter.html

By all appearances this image just looks like a photograph of a bookstore from the past. Looks can be wonderfully deceiving. The scene is actually a miniature set constructed, a diorama, and photographed by the artist. One of a series called "Winter Stories", this image serves as a scene from a story. The images are quiet and beautiful, “Winter Stories,” "referring literally, to the season depicted, but also, more figuratively, to the final season of one’s life. Ventura conceived of the photographs as representing the recollections of an old man as he looks back during his final moments" (Art in America, Nov. 2008, Jean Dykstra)