Faith Ringgold’s Tar Beach incorporates traditional painting technique with her signature quilting. 

Tar Beach is the first quilted painting in this series which follows Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a young girl growing up in Harlem. Ringgold took a lot of inspiration from her own life to create this character and story, in hopes that it would resonate stronger with the audience. So, if the painting gives you a sense of familiarity and warmth, that’s by design. 

Tar Beach is what is known as a story quilt. It combines paint on canvas with quilted fabric material. Story quilts ultimately became one of Ringgold’s signature styles. Making art in this way only helps with Ringgold’s desire to have her art seem accessible to a younger audience. I can imagine being a kid and walking up to this and thinking it looked a lot like something I’d have in my room. And even if I didn’t inherently understand what it was about, it would still resonate with me in some shape or form because of the way it looked alone. 

By the time Faith Ringgold made Tar Beach, she’d been a pretty successful working artist for a while. It wasn’t even her first time incorporating quilting into her art. But nonetheless, it’s regarded as one of, if not the best work of art that she created. That can be attributed to its authenticity. It’s the type of art with a lot of intent behind it; it knows what it is and the story it wants to tell, and doesn't stray from that at all. 

As mentioned before, Tar Beach was the first in a series of paintings featuring Cassie Louise Lightfoot, a young girl who dreams about flying around her neighborhood. It proved to be so popular, that the story from the quilts was adapted into an actual children’s book, furthering the accessibility of a story that made so many children feel seen.

Tar Beach is packaged in a way that speaks specifically to the type of people it was geared towards, forgoing anyone else. That’s not to say that any other type of person can’t have a positive experience with this painting. It’s hopeful, warm, and friendly. These are all themes that are important for kids to see in work geared towards them. It’s about dreaming about doing something that might seem impossible. As a Black woman, Ringgold was living proof that such things can be achieved if you just put your mind to it.