42nd Street Records
Happy Birthday Jackson Pollock!
January 28, 2009
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So, today is the birthday of my favorite painter. The man who inspired me to paint and who I (albeit very aware of the argumentative nature of this praise) attribute to really breaking down the barriers of what art can do and how it can be made and to go beyond the work itself and find the soul.
| “ | My painting does not come from the easel. I prefer to tack the unstretched canvas to the hard wall or the floor. I need the resistance of a hard surface. On the floor I am more at ease. I feel nearer, more part of the painting, since this way I can walk around it, work from the four sides and literally be in the painting. | ” |
| “ | I continue to get further away from the usual painter’s tools such as easel, palette, brushes, etc. I prefer sticks, trowels, knives and dripping fluid paint or a heavy impasto with sand, broken glass or other foreign matter added. | ” |
| “ | When I am in my painting, I’m not aware of what I’m doing. It is only after a sort of ‘get acquainted’ period that I see what I have been about. I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through. It is only when I lose contact with the painting that the result is a mess. Otherwise there is pure harmony, an easy give and take, and the painting comes out well. | ” |
Pollock famously incorporated his daily regime into his art. My favorite painting, No. 1, 1950- Lavender Mist, is well known for containing not only his more common components, but also saliva, aluminum, and the cigarette ashes that fell from his mouth when he was smoking.
| “ | Pollock’s finest paintings… reveal that his all-over line does not give rise to positive or negative areas: we are not made to feel that one part of the canvas demands to be read as figure, whether abstract or representational, against another part of the canvas read as ground. There is not inside or outside to Pollock’s line or the space through which it moves…. Pollock has managed to free line not only from its function of representing objects in the world, but also from its task of describing or bounding shapes or figures, whether abstract or representational, on the surface of the canvas. | ” |
I miss you Jackson Pollock.
