Hearing Our Voice

Hearing Our Voice by Delia King located in the Brewerytown neighborhood of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania is part of a two mural tribute with an djacent mural on the west side of 29th street, Felix St. Fort’s rendition of “Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles.” These murals celebrate the works of Faith Ringgold, a Black artist born in New York and celebrated worldwide for her paintings. In 1963 Ringgold began a body of paintings called the American People series, which portrays the civil rights movement from a female perspective. In the 1970s she created African-style masks, painted political posters, lectured frequently at feminist art conferences, and actively sought the racial integration of the New York art world. She originated a demonstration against the Whitney Museum of American Art and helped win admission for black artists to the exhibit schedule at the Museum of Modern Art. In 1970 she cofounded, with one of her daughters, the advocacy group Women Students and Artists for Black Art Liberation.

Among Ringgold’s most renowned works, her “story quilts” were inspired by the Tibetan tankas (paintings framed in cloth) that she viewed on a visit to museums in Amsterdam. She painted these quilts with narrative images and original stories set in the context of African American history. Her mother frequently collaborated with her on these. Her artwork is exhibited in major museums in the USA, Europe, South America, Asia, Africa, and the Middle East.

The central image of this mural is inspired by Faith Ringgold’s “Sunflower Quilting Bee at Arles” currently in the collection of the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The community and Advanced Big Picture students adapted it for for this wall creating a mural reminiscent of Ringgolds original painting, but with their own twist. Thirty four portraits surround the main image with a ”quilt” border; each portrait was painted by a Big Picture student connecting them into not only the Philadelphia community but the larger global art world.