NEWS RELEASE
Contact: Michelle Byrd
Director of Public Relations
mbyrd@mca.edu
(901) 272-5111

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 9, 2008

MCA Welcomes Artist Faith Ringgold

Memphis, TN–Memphis College of Art and the Tennessee Art Education Association (TAEA) welcome Faith Ringgold Friday, October 17 at 6.00 pm in Callicott Auditorium. Ringgold is an internationally renowned artist, educator and social activist who began her artistic career in the 1960’s as a painter, but is best known for her painted story quilts - art that combines painting, quilted fabric and storytelling. Since 1969 her work has taken many forms including painting, printmaking, soft sculpture, performance art, writing and quilt making. Ringgold is included in the permanent collections of many museums including the Guggenheim Museum, the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Museum of Modern Art.

Her first book Tar Beach was a Caldecott Honor Book and winner of the Coretta Scott King Award for Illustration, among numerous honors. She has received more than 75 awards, fellowships, citations and honors including two National Endowment for the Arts Awards. Ringgold is the founder of the Anyone Can Fly Foundation, a non-profit organization whose mission is “ to expand the art establishment’s canon to include artists of the African Diaspora and to introduce the Great Masters of African American Art and their art traditions to kids as well as adult audiences”.

Her work is inspired by art forms from other cultures as well as by her African heritage and life in Harlem, New York City.

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