Jackson Pollack - Freedom of Expression & Video Showcase

Do you think Jackson Pollack enjoyed painting? Throwing paint around and feeling the dance of creativity? I do!

Why not try it?

Be a Pollack for the day!

Find a piece of plywood lying around, or anything really. Search out some old house paint or go to the hardware store and buy some of their sale stuff.. just a few colors is fine. It does not have to be a major expense, in fact, that is the point, in order to free yourself up, it needs to be as little expense as possible. Find some old junk.. old jewelry, even Christmas wrapping paper or weird things you come across. Next take it all outside and PLAY! Just PLAY.. no pressure for anything to turn out. Dump stuff on the plywood and be a Pollack for the day. Let it dry and then go back and play again over the same piece, building up a patina effect. Metallic paints are great for this too!

Pollack was a depressed fellow despite his propensity for enjoying the dance of art. The pressure of making a living doing art and getting some kind of acclaim by peers and society is huge. Mr Pollack also loved his booze and did not handle them well. It was booze that killed him in the end. Many consider a certain manic behavior from artists, that they have a dark side that mysteriously works its way on to canvas or clay or whatever. Do I? I guess in part yes I do. That will be disputed by many who read this and I totally understand. We can disagree as many will about the work of Pollack in general. For a long time I simply did not get it, can't anyone splatter paint around? That is how I viewed it. I have since changed my mind though. Artist during his era were trying to climb out of a very tight box and did it in various ways. This is what defined Picasso and Matisse. They used the knowledge they had about how to express themselves with art and danced with it. It is a trance like experience.

Paul Jackson Pollock:

Born January 28, 1912 Cody, Wyoming Died August 11, 1956 ... aged 44. Forty four years old, imagine that, still a young man. What a waste. He could not get past his demons though.

He was part of a group of abstract expressionism as I eluded to. One of his fans/patrons was acclaimed Peggy Guggenheim .

He married another important American painter, Lee Krasner

He perfected the technique of working spontaneously with liquid paint, pouring, splattering on canvas. He then began painting with his canvases laid out on the studio floor, and developed what was later called his drip technique. The drip technique required paint with a fluid viscosity so Pollock turned to then new synthetic resin-based paints, called "gloss enamel", made for industrial purposes such as spray-painting cars, much like I suggested YOU try in my opening paragraph.. just grab any paint on hand and feel free with it. Pollock's technique of pouring and dripping paint is thought to be one of the origins of the term action painting. Be non conventional!

In 1956 Time magazine dubbed Pollock "Jack the Dripper as a result of his unique painting style.

Try it you may like it.

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TURN ON SOME BILLIE HOLIDAY

as you enjoy my lens.

(Music can also be purchased below)

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“The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.”

“It doesn't make much difference how the paint is put on as long as something has been said. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.”

“When I am in a 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 fears about 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.”

“Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.”

“Today painters do not have to go to a subject matter outside of themselves. Most modern painters work from a different source. They work from within.”

“The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.”

“The modern artist…is working and expressing an inner world – in other words – expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.”

“The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.”

“It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed – after a while you may like it or you may not.”

“I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge.”

Click the link and it will bring up a REALLY FUN site where you can be a Pollack without the mess. Given to my by our friend Tippi.. yay Tippi!!

Some people don't consider Pollack's work as art.. preferring for realism.... and you?

Is it ART?

poem by Kathy Ostman-Magnusen

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.. said Pollack.. When I think of him my guess is that he was pretty darn sexual as a lot of artists are.. thus this poem:

"Arousal Isn't That Far Away and Yet Once Abused May Never Return Again in Quite the Same Way"

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How to make him want you

isn't that the query?

How to make her move

forever loving

forever discovering

each others muse?

Arousal isn't that the far away.

And yet

once abused

may never return again

in quite the same

exotic way.

He painted her face

with a brush he found in the desert.

Too dry to measure colors

too distant to understand her portrait.

Vengeful soul.

He took out his palette

ran his collection of jealous memories

through his selfish mind

and implanted his intended mood

onto an empty canvas.

So many choices could have been made

there were softer pigments

on that eerie day

that most assuredly could have been embraced.

A time or seeking tenderness

breezes on the skin

on warm afternoons.

Shared views of a mountains terrain

gentle creeks delivering sparkles

for the sky to meet.

Rainbows to step inside of

as fairy terns fly

by.

A princess is dreaming

didn't he know?

He had captured her lovely face

yesterday

or was it years ago?

Time brings mistakes

and everybody makes them

often without meaning to

they slip

and lose their way.

How does one wipe out crimes

simply

after finding times of misjudgment?

Life changes

from day to day

from second to second

each breath.

Passion is often hard to define

and yet

we know it when we live it

so elusive

heart of yours

heart of mine

heart of anyone who breaks

or fails to dream farther.

When the rain comes

and you know it will

consider that portrait painter

who had gathered dust

from an anger he'd instilled.

A vengeful

portrait artist

letting go of a princess

he once truly did

admire.

Love floods in

lusts reach an unmeasurable tune

romance fills the air

and no one else in this world matters

...until.

Eyes gloss over

time is spent another way

and thus a princess

once so cherished

enough to fill a room with roses

becomes a sad song

under a pitiful

bleeding

moon.

Strangers enter

find their places

disrupting what was ever true.

Masks in place

distorted views

and all the while a mood it set

beyond an artists room.

Lights too dim to understand

that colors cannot possibly breathe

beyond a mindset

where seduction

is no longer

groomed.

So, how to make him want you

or how to make her move?

Arousal isn't that the far away.

I guess that's what they say.

And yet

once abused

may never return

in quite the same exotic way.

And isn't it pathetic

those clouds that pass by

and fail to offer moisture

to a deserts brush

for a betrayed painters eye.

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ABOUT Kathy Ostman-Magnusen: I am an artist, represented by Monkdogz Urban Art, New York. ORIGINAL ART may be purchased through Monkdogz: http://www.monkdogz.com/chelseagallery/artistart/M...

My newest website: http://www.kathyostman-magnusen.com

The image is of my sculpture "Bleeding Wings 5"

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