Consumer Art
Sister Corita was influenced by such thinkers as John Cage and Buckminster Fuller whose philosophy was central to the Black Mountain College—that being an interdisciplinary approach to learning where the arts is integral. Sort of like: everything is connected. There was a strong emphasis on creativity and creating.
Indeed, in her 10 Rules there are so many connections. Definitely for her everything emanated out of a spiritual core.
She was doing art in a turbulent time. The world was at a tipping point—there was free love, rock’n’roll, the Vietnam War with its subsequent lies, assassinations, Civil Rights unrest, political upheaval. A bit like today. Yet there was a lack of cynicism as man y young people began to search for the truth.
For Sister Corita there was the obvious and then the less obvious, the text and the subtext, the thing behind the thing, the message behind the dogma. So even though she is working with words, she is attempting to engage a viewer’s head and heart by having them draw their own conclusion. I’ve labelled her work as abstract light because she was working with both abstraction and representation aka type and font. For example using the General Mills G
She was restoring life to words by taking them back from
advertising.
Later, after leaving the order, she would use her art to underscore her belief and position on Civil Rights, women’s rights, and the war.
More than ever, I am intrigued by this guileless,
inquisitive, and brave religious worker who sought to meld her beliefs into her
art. Who poured spirit and verve into her work in the name of the Holy Spirit,
who found in the ordinary the sacred.
My series on Corita inspired by:
CORITA KENT. ART AND SOUL. THE BIOGRAPHY.
By April Dammann
Published by Angel City Press, 160 pages, $40
To read the entire series, Search Corita Kent or click on
tags.
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