"Faith Ringgold"(Born 8,1930).

Is An African Artist,best known for painted story quilts.She is professor emeritus in the University of California,San Diego visual Art department.Faith was born and raised in Harlem and educated at the City College of New York,where she studied with Robert Gathmey and Yasuo Kuniyoshi.She received an M.A. from the college 1959.She was greatly influenced by the fabric she worked with her mother,who was a fashion designer,and has used fabric in many of her artworks.She is especially well-known from her painted story quilts which blur the line between "high art"and "craft"by combining paintings,quilted fabric,and storytelling.She modeled her "story quilts"on the Buddhist Thangkas,lovely pictures painted on fabric and quilted or brocaded,which could then be easily rolled up and transported.She has influenced numerous modern artists,including Linda Freeman,and known some of the greatest African American artists personally,including Romare Bearden, Jacob Lawrence,and Betye Saar.Her work is in the permanent collection of many museums including the Solomon R.Guggenheim Museum,the Metropolitan Museum of Art,the Museum of Modern Art,and other museums,mostly in New York City.Faith is represented by ACA Gallery.Her second daughter Barbara has a website selling Faith works at affordable prices.In addition,Faith has written and illustrated seventeen children books, including Tar Beach.She and her daughter,the writer Michele Wallace,were founding members of the National Black Feminist Organization.Faith was also a founding member of the "Where We At" Black Women Artists, a New York-based women art collective associated with the Black Arts Movement.A new elementary and middle school in Hayward,California Faith Ringgold School  k-8,was named after her in 2007.