Unseen: Women in Art-- Storytelling & Faith Ringgold
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Unseen is a five-week studio workshop series exploring the lives, methods, and significance of women artists who made some of the most powerful and innovative work in American art history — and were systematically overlooked, dismissed, or forgotten anyway. Each week centers on a different artist or group, asking not just what they made, but why they made it, how they made it, and why it still matters.
This is not an art history lecture. It is a making experience. Participants spend each session in conversation with one artist's life and work, then create their own original piece in response — using materials and approaches inspired by that week's artist. No prior art experience is required. What's required is curiosity, a willingness to try, and an interest in the question at the heart of every session: whose work gets remembered, and why?
Presented by Heijeu Arts. Led by teaching artist and researcher Heidi Jeub, whose graduate work at the University of Minnesota examined the systemic barriers that keep artists from rural and underrepresented communities out of the historical record.
DECEMBER:
Telling the Story Only You Can Tell
Narrative Art: Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold spent years being rejected by galleries who told her quilts weren't serious art. So she made the quilt the art. Her story quilts — combining painting, fabric, and written narrative — changed what art could look like and whose stories it could tell. Her 1991 children's book Tar Beach grew from one of them. She received her first major recognition in her 60s.
Studio: Each participant creates a personal narrative panel — a single image that tells a story from their own life, memory, or community. Mixed media: drawing, paint, collage, words optional. Inspired by Ringgold's belief that the stories only you can tell are the ones most worth making.
Discussion: What story from your life has never been painted? What would it mean to make it visible? Whose stories are missing from the walls of the museums you've visited?
This is not an art history lecture. It is a making experience. Participants spend each session in conversation with one artist's life and work, then create their own original piece in response — using materials and approaches inspired by that week's artist. No prior art experience is required. What's required is curiosity, a willingness to try, and an interest in the question at the heart of every session: whose work gets remembered, and why?
Presented by Heijeu Arts. Led by teaching artist and researcher Heidi Jeub, whose graduate work at the University of Minnesota examined the systemic barriers that keep artists from rural and underrepresented communities out of the historical record.
DECEMBER:
Telling the Story Only You Can Tell
Narrative Art: Faith Ringgold
Faith Ringgold spent years being rejected by galleries who told her quilts weren't serious art. So she made the quilt the art. Her story quilts — combining painting, fabric, and written narrative — changed what art could look like and whose stories it could tell. Her 1991 children's book Tar Beach grew from one of them. She received her first major recognition in her 60s.
Studio: Each participant creates a personal narrative panel — a single image that tells a story from their own life, memory, or community. Mixed media: drawing, paint, collage, words optional. Inspired by Ringgold's belief that the stories only you can tell are the ones most worth making.
Discussion: What story from your life has never been painted? What would it mean to make it visible? Whose stories are missing from the walls of the museums you've visited?
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Where is it happening?
11 7th Ave N, Suite 200, Saint Cloud, MN, United States, Minnesota 56303
Event Location & Nearby Stays:
Know what’s Happening Next — before everyone else does.
Host or PublisherHeijeu Arts
