Dr. Riché Richardson, Untitled

"Views of my completed 10-inch block for the Toni Morrison Quilting Project in Ithaca, New York based at her alma mater Cornell. It’s a miniature version of my larger 2010 art quilt featuring the Nobel Laureate, a design inspired by a 1990s Time magazine cover. This block borrows and distills some of its features, but centers the love theme and incorporates a piece of African kente cloth, in part to register recurring references to Africa in her fiction, including the myth of the flying Africans in Song of Solomon. It’s rendered in my typical mixed-media appliqué art quilting style in keeping with all of the works in the works in the “Portraits” show, hinting at its 3-D elements through the angling of the face, and showcasing the color silhouette style characteristic of my earliest quilts. As always, continuing work on the “Portraits” show’s finale itself is my main focus; I’m thankful to now be able to give its continued development my full attention once again as an artist."