The Art and Message of Sister Corita Kent

My work on a non-fiction manuscript side-winded into a discovery: Sister Corita Kent.

Think 60s nun movies like Where Angels Go Trouble Follows! Where a young nun comes along and shakes things up. Sister Corita came up in the teaching order of the Sisters of the Immaculate Heart of Mary and taught art classes at the Immaculate Heart College for girls in Los Angeles in the 1950s and 60s. You might be familiar with her work—one of her designs graces one of the most popular stamps ever:

 

Now I have never been big on word or typography art—especially when it deals with religious subject matter. It comes across as pedantic. It also comes across as abstract light. I remember many church bulletin covers back in the day at my United Methodist church employed this kind of art work. This was a time when “modern” felt like it was trying too hard. It is saying “I’m hip, I’m with it” borrowing the lingo of the kids, but not the political or radical spirit needed to carry it. The most radical thing my mediocre suburban Methodist church did was carpet the sanctuary.

Sister Corita traded in the world of words. As a religious worker words were important because in the beginning was the word, the word made flesh, that came to dwell and live among us on Earth. Scripture is words. Doctrine is made concrete and spread by using words. Corita looked for a way to communicate through her art, to express her inner thoughts and feelings, her heart.

She turned to silk screen printing because it was something inexpensive, readily available and whose product was accessible to the viewer. Silk screen printing was becoming more and more popular in the 1960s—one of the most iconic artists using this process was Andy Warhol. But as his motivation was secular, Sister Corita used the method to produce prints for the masses, to teach and inspire. When her prints sold the money was used for the order and the school. It would in perpetuity endow the religious community spun off of the Immaculate Heart of Mary.

For Sister Corita art was an act of hope.

The world for women and particularly women in the church was changing. Vatican II and Pope Paul VI was trying to guide the Catholic Church into a new century, into becoming more relevant. In the late 1960s the order took a fork in the road and dispensed with their vows, stopped wearing the habit, and reorganized into a nonprofit religious community, governing themselves.

For the next few essays/blog posts I will take a look at and opine on Sister Corita.

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.