Drawn

Have you heard the one about the famous nun graphic designer? Me either, until I recently stumbled upon this book, entitled “Come Alive!: The Spirited Art of Sister Corita”. I wondered who this “Sister Corita” was. Clever moniker? Kooky pseudonym? Nope: actual nun. Née Frances Elizabeth Kent, Sister Corita:

(…) was the most famous nun of the 1960s and one of the most famous graphic artists in the US, yet she is rarely mentioned in the grand history of graphic design.

Born 1918, in Fort Dodge, Iowa; Frances Kent moved with her family to Vancouver in 1920 and Los Angeles in 1922. She entered the Sisters of Immaculate Heart of Mary in 1936 as Sister Mary Corita, attended Immaculate Heart College, and received her Masters Degree in Art History from the University of Southern California in 1951. From 1946 to 1968, Sister Corita taught art at Immaculate Heart College; often using unconventional methods: looking a work without blinking, staging happenings, etc. As the chair of the Art Department, the known and unknown visited her classes: Buckminster Fuller, Charles and Ray Eames, Ben Shahn, and Daniel and Philip Berrigan. (via Speak Up)

Sister Corita had been “nuts about words and their shape since [she] was very young” and during the mid-1960s her work shifted from silkscreened, liturgical images reminiscent of Ben Shahn to Pop Art appropriations of consumer-product typography and slogans. In her view, Wonder Bread corresponded with the Eucharist, Joy detergent was a sacrament, and SafeWay was a metaphor for the Faith.

She felt there was much to learn from television advertisements. In a 1967 Christian renewal symposium she postulated if the medium is the message; then perhaps if Christ lived today, his sermons would take the form of commercials. All the poetry of a painting is diminished by those who do not see it, so to care about communication is to care about form. (ibid.)

I’m not touching that last paragraph with a ten-foot pole.

There’s more at the following links:
- Corita.org
- Wikipedia entry
- Creative Review (thanks Elaine!)
- Weekend America Public Radio
- Design Observer