MY INNER-ABSTRACTIONIST

My homage to Pollock.

I love Jackson Pollock.  I think if you've read this blog for a while you might know this about me (see my post from January 2008, Denying The Accident).  He clearly had emotional problems and a serious drinking problem, but as an artist, I feel that his work was unparallelled.  I know there are lots of people who would disagree with me.  Maybe abstract art just isn't their thing.  Others would say really thoughtful and original things like "I could do that" or "My 2 year old could do a better painting than that".  Sure.  Give it a try.  This kind of abstraction is really difficult to achieve without ending up with a painting that is simply a soul-less mess.  I painted the canvas pictured above for my studio wall a couple of years ago.  I unashamedly admit to trying to copy Pollock's style.  I failed in my mission, but I like it anyway.  As simple as this painting looks, I can tell you that it was hard.  I painted over it 5 times before I was semi-happy with it.  I love how deceptively simple his process was.  I can almost feel the freedom of it when I look at his paintings.  The work seems to me to float off of the canvas.  

I was wandering around on the Internet tonight and found this fun site (www.jacksonpollock.org) where you can create a Pollock-style painting on your computer.  I admit to playing with this for far too long.  Give it a try and maybe you'll find your inner-abstractionist.  It's certainly a lot less messy than the real thing!