Premiering in full for the first time on NOWNESS, Become a Microscope is Aaron Rose’s documentary on progressive nun and iconic pop artist Sister Corita Kent, who shook up both LA's Catholic establishment and art scene during her tenure at Immaculate Heart College between 1947 and 1968. Rose’s own constantly expanding career—encompassing successes as a gallerist, painter and musician—took a turn into film in 2008 with his directorial debut Beautiful Losers. On the occasion of his Directors' Cuts submission, Rose takes a trip down memory lane with his irrepressible subject. 

“I first learned about Sister Corita at a friend’s house. She had one of her pieces on the wall, and I commented on it assuming it was by a young contemporary artist. I didn’t realize it had been done in the 60s. Within a week I was diving deep into research on her. At that time I was doing a lot of curatorial work and I put together a small retrospective exhibition of her work. Coincidentally, the day that would have been Corita’s 90th birthday happened right around the time when we were needed to shoot the film. We set up a little set at the campus at Immaculate Heart and threw a birthday party for her. We invited all of her friends, and we had champagne, the nuns baked goods, we had a little exhibition of her work, and then everyone sat down for interviews.  

”Making documentaries about art is very hard because art on film just sits there and doesn’t move, so animation was one of the only real ways that we thought we could bring the work to life and keep it feeling organic to her vision. We had 30 or 40 different animators working on it full time. Sister Corita was really notable, not only for being a nun and being that progressive, but also having the fortitude to fight off so much opposition. She had her loyal followers, but so much of the Catholic Church at that time was really against her. She was just a very inspiring and very strong person.”

Check back on Monday for a Directors' Cut from Claude Speeed.