an imprint of histories from the artists’ studio windows

BY JOOHEE KIM

Faith Ringgold (b. 1930) and Betye Saar (b. 1926) are artists who tell important histories with mundane, repurposed objects. Ringgold’s painted Story Quilts combine the ancestral and the familial traditions of quilting with political messages derived from her own beliefs and lived experiences as a Black woman. Saar, who is known primarily for her assemblage works, brings together family history, mystical inspiration, and derogatory images of African Americans in order to rewrite harmful narratives and imagine brighter futures instead.

Beginning in the 1960s, both Ringgold and Saar began to address the complex layers of their own lives as Black women in their artworks. At the same time, social and artistic movements which addressed issues of racism and gender inequality intensified, though the priorities of these two interest groups seldom overlapped. Whereas the Black Power and Black Arts movements were dominated by Black men, the women’s liberation and Feminist Art movements were primarily directed by white women. In response to the Civil Rights movement and to the women’s liberation movement—as well as their exclusion from these efforts—both Ringgold and Saar drew on their personal experiences as Black women to bring critical attention to the pervasive issues of racist and gendered exclusion. As part of that mission, both artists rewrote the story of Aunt Jemima, giving an alternative life to the stereotypical ‘mammy’ figure that appeared on syrup bottles and pancake boxes until the products were rebranded in 2021. Both artists addressed Aunt Jemima as a distinctly Black feminist issue in a period when movements dedicated to Black Civil Rights efforts and women’s issues were divided and gender and race lines. In the hands of Ringgold and Saar, Aunt Jemima— a derogatory caricature of a Black woman—emerged as a subject that addressed their unique experiences and their double exclusion from prominent social movements of the 1960 and 1970s.

The window is an important conceptual and formal device for the artists Betye Saar and Faith Ringgold. From her studio window, Ringgold sees her “determination to be free in America,” 1 while for Saar, “the window is a way of traveling from one level of consciousness to another, like the physical looking into the spiritual.” 2 The window is thus an interface between the private, individual space and the public, exterior world.

In the artists’ print series—Declaration of Freedom and Independence (2009) by Ringgold and Bookmarks in the Pages of Life (2000) by Saar—we see a similar oscillation, this time between image and surface. In these works, Saar and Ringgold weave, overlap, and engage with stories of racism and misogyny through serigraph printmaking. In their printmaking method, ink is squeegeed through a mesh screen that is partially blocked to achieve the desired stenciled shapes, and multiple screens are used to build each image layer by layer, color by color. With each squeegee movement, the ink traces left behind become crucial ingredients for the final form. In other words, this process superimposes past and present histories and transforms the external world into a contemplative surface for the viewer.

Saar’s Bookmarks consists of six multicolored serigraphs of the African American author Zora Neale Hurston’s short stories on slavery from the 1930s and 1940s in Harlem and small-town Florida. Weaving Hurston’s stories with real history and places, Saar reconstructs the scenes of racial struggles that Hurston observed in the American South, using fragmented fabric, faded photos, text, and patterned paper. By illustrating individual African American stories, Saar stacks each personal story onto the larger image of public history. On the other hand, Ringgold focuses exclusively on U.S. history in her Declaration series. Ringgold directs us toward the harsh realities of Black people and women in a racist and misogynistic society through her subjects, while within the window of the print we find a self-reflective silhouette. Although the dominant view “American” history frequently fails to consider the individual, here the two views—social and personal—converge.

Ringgold and Saar are active participants in history, rather than passive onlookers. Recognizing that the contributions and experiences of Black women were undervalued in both the Feminist and the Civil Rights movements, they create a new, liminal space for themselves. Their creativity allows for a space belonging, outside of the binaries of sex and race.3 Through their works, Ringgold and Saar encourage us to both reflect on this shared history and to make a conscious decision about the lens through which we view it.