Corita Kent
I didn’t know Corita Kent. I met her once, a long time ago, as Sister Corita when her department at Immaculate Heart College had a sale of students’ prints. Then I heard her speak at the college’s final commencement when my wife received a master’s degree and Corita told all of those last graduates that “You bring the spring.” I cried.
One fall afternoon I drove down the Southeast Expressway from Boston toward Cape Cod. On the right were dreary tenements, but on the left, beyond the faceless industrial developments, there was that celebration of color and life emblazoned on an enormous white gas tank. I knew it was Corita before I saw her signature. It said joy without using a word.
She had the spring within her and she shared it with all of us through her art and her life. I read of her death in The Times (Sept. 20) and I cried.
DEAN J. SLOCUM
Costa Mesa
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