Dearest Ms. Ringgold,

I am a huge fan of your books, art and writings. I first learned about you and your work around 1998. One afternoon I pulled all my strength together and decided to see if I could actually speak with you. I figured the worst would be..."No, and don't ever call again". I called you on a Sunday afternoon and much to my delight, you answered your phone and we talked about 10 minutes. I teach my students at our school: Round Top Elementary School all about you.. I still enjoy Tar Beach: both the book and the piece of art work. I have several of your reproducations to share with my students.

Here is what I would LOVE to do. See what you think... The students could come up with 10 questions (at the very most) and we could SKPE using our computers so you can see the kids and we could see you. THAT would be a dream come true for me. We would be willing to do this any day, Monday - Friday. We start school at 8:15 AM and end at 3:00 PM. If you would like to do this and can work us in for just a few minutes. Also, please let us know if you will/can do this and if there is a fee for this great experience.

I really appreciate the way you make(made) so many pieces of art using many skills you learned from growing up around artistic people. Your mixed medium pieces are beautiful. The quilting you use with the painting and the words all around the image gives your work a richness: a quilt (literally) of life experiences that make your pieces so unique.

Ms. Ringgold, please let me know as soon as you can. We are having an ARTS DAY at our school on March 28, 2013. The classroom teachers will be coming up with any art form to integrate with at least one area with their curriculum standards during this day. I am looking forward to this day! The students may choose to use creative writing, a dramatic act, a song, visual arts and/or dance to artistically express their work. It will be our first year so we'll just do our (music, dance and me, the visual arts teacher)personal best effort to assist as many classrooms as possible during
this day...

Certainly, this would be a great day to have you SKPED in but we would be "tickled pink" to have the opportunity to ask and listen to you about your work.
Thank you for your consideration.
With Best Wishes,

LaDonna Miles Dixon
Visual Arts Educator
Round Top Elementary
803 - 691 - 8676 ext. 3304
ldixon@richland2.org

Are you an educator? YES!