SIGNS OF HOPE

An evocative tribute to the style and spirit of a countercultural pop artist.

“She is small and quiet, but her art is big and loud.” Rockliff leaves most of the biographical details of Sister Corita Kent’s (1918-1986) meteoric public career to the closing timeline and focuses instead on conveying her methods and message as her students might have experienced them. The author asks readers to follow the artist’s practice by using a hole cut through a piece of cardboard—or, alternatively, a cell phone camera—as a “finder” to isolate and see anew portions of the common, everyday world’s surrounding scenes and signage. She captures her subject at work clipping words from advertisements and magazines to make uplifting, politically aware collages and luminous screen prints. “She has taught us how to SEE / and play / and protest joyfully,” the author concludes. “Now it’s our turn to share what we have learned.” Along with nods to some of Sister Corita’s own works and writings, Sweet incorporates similar assemblages of words against bright, vibrant abstract backgrounds to accompany glimpses of the smiling but serious-looking white artist, in both traditional habit and “modern” dress, hard at work amid groups of students and marchers who are diverse in terms of skin tone.

A buoyant invitation to see the world and to look for artistic ways to improve it.