The Beauty of the Amateur

From the artist Corita Kent’s book, Learning by Heart: Teachings to Free the Creative Spirit:

“A tremendously constricting force on our contemporary society is the concept of the professional or specialist, who deals for the most part with what has already been done and builds on his own limits. To the extent we can approach our job as an amateur (from the Latin amare, meaning to love) will we be successful in our work. When we pursue a thing for love, we are free to fumble and make mistakes. The course of our work may not run smoothly, but we are open to possibilities, embracing everything we have contact with. Our vision is not narrowed by convention.”

Sister Corita Kent (1918 – 1986) was a Catholic nun, as well as one of the most innovative and unusual pop artists of the twentieth century. Many of her artworks, “serigraphs,” combine advertising slogans and poetry, and are now recognized as some of the most striking and joyful American art of the 1960s.