✶*¨*✶☀ViSuAL ArTs WeDnEsDaYs✶*¨*.✫*¨*Jackson Pollock!!!Comments More Than Welcomed; They're Expected!!!

✶*¨*✶☀ViSuAL ArTs WeDnEsDaYs✶*¨*.✫*¨*(Chicken Thursdays are on Thursday; see Old El Paso tv)

Write a poem, critize the artwork, comment on the texture or smell of the artwork,mostly comment on virtually anything that you feel, sense, think about, spiritual find an affinity towards, yes ANYTHING. The world and universe and all that is in it, off it, squishing between the toes, nitty gritty, sitting pretty! You got it! You want it but more importantly; YOU NEED IT. You need this! It is CrEaTiVe ViSuAL ArTs WeDnEsDaY!!! Get creative! Comment. The reward will be; Your every increasing appreciation for the Visual Arts! And some accolades thrown in with the punch!

Here is the work of ARt we will be discussing this Wednesday;

~Jackson Pollock "#5" 1948~

WoW!!! I remember seeing this painting at the M.O.M.A (Musuem of Modern Art NY NY) in the 1980's.

As I look upon this painting "#5 1948" by the late ever greatest artist that ever lived artist; I knew right away; "this is art". The famous USA artist Jackson Pollock, who's phenomenal abstract expressionist art is the definitive art in my mind.

I am immediately reminded of the immediacy of the work. I see conveyed in his work this stand-alone quality; this independence.

Pollock's art is immediate; it exists.

It is existential, primoridial, directly present; independent; a creative maverick; pure energy.

Here is an amazing quote from my Jackson Pollock research today;

"A dripping wet canvas covered the entire floor. . . There was complete silence. . . Pollock looked at the painting. Then, unexpectedly, he picked up can and paint brush and started to move around the canvas. It was as if he suddenly realized the painting was not finished. His movements, slow at first, gradually became faster and more dance like as he flung black, white, and rust colored paint onto the canvas. He completely forgot that Lee and I were there; he did not seem to hear the click of the camera shutter. . . My photography session lasted as long as he kept painting, perhaps half an hour. In all that time, Pollock did not stop. How could one keep up this level of activity? Finally, he said 'This is it.'" *Wikipedia

What totally amazed me from my studies on Pollock today (hey I need a refresher too, it's been, what, thirty plus years since Art class!) is that Jackson used the "drip" method for his "action" paintings. The paintings were numbered so as to not take away from the painting as a painting; for what it is; a painting. It would stand on its own.

Also, I found that his wife, also a painter was very influential in his life and work. This I liked, but I know it must have been difficult; two painters; two independent thinkers brought together in this way; there had to have been some clashes in personality. Life is not perfect; especially for the artistic. I heard that he did drink. Heavily. This caused him to drink and drive. Back then everyone did this; there were no laws to say; don't get drunk and drive. James Dean victim to this as well. Alcoholic problems. I know this is a fact.

It wouldn't matter though, if Jackson did or did not die in that horrible car crash, Jackson's work would have still been great. That's the beauty of his art. His death was inconsequential to his talent as a painter. He made the greats.

Unless Pollock had another masterpiece or two to come; we will never know, unfortunately. I would have liked to have met him, he wholly fascinates me. I want to see the movie "Pollock" with Ed Harris (from one of my fav movies of all time; "The Right Stuff"). Yes, Jackson Pollock had and will always have; The Right Stuff in his painting. It "Is" so very beautiful; touching the heart of the soul to become pure Spirit-form painting.

So as I continued my brief study today; how time flies, but I did capture in this one paragraph, I believe the essence of the Pollock painting. I was amazed to find that Pollock lived in Iowa, studied native American culture, in particular the sand paintings of the Navaho Natives in Arizona and New Mexico. Reminding me of the Zen Buddhist tradition of making sand paintings as well, and then they become dust. The Navaho's make this sand paintings for healing purposes, gathering powerful elements of various mineral deposits, and making powerful talisman-type symbols to cure. What better cure than pure energy?

Also, the idea that in 1936 the ability for liquid paint became the impetus for Pollock creating the "drip" works. I love this innovation in art, the mixing of media, to create something new. This is so inspiring to me, I feel like going out and doing something today. Like an itch; the creative spirit should be "focused energy". Intent. I like this. A lot.

The painting exists on its own merit as an entity; something holy and wholly powerful, something moving yet static. Holy Dynamics! It has this awesome energy; latent, and constant; a undeniable presense; like it just walked into the room and all eyes are upon it's LIVELINESS. It attracts like energy; it is an unknown entity; energy + artist = energart. ARTergy?

For a painting to be art there must be this LIVELINESS in my opinion.

This state of the static being, living, breathing; basically the work is ALIVE for you. This can be any art not just a Jackson Pollock, or Andy Warhol, or El Greco.

And I am not talking about "real live art" like a Chia Car which has real chia grass growing on it for example, although...that could be as well. Here, I am discussing the "LIVELINESS" NOT so much a living amoeba or plant or animal life. NOt quite what I intend to say; not quite.

No, Not with an amoebic presense, although this could happen too, in an assemblage-like piece, and I am sure this has been done to some extent (this gives me an idea CH CH CHIA CARS again). Although probably not back in 1948 when this work was exhibited for the first time in history.

Jackson Pollock's "#5" so wholly separate from a growing entity, more of a living entity. And art essentially back then, in 1948 was static it was was not living as an entity unto itself. It must have been that Pollock thought this through, about the need to capture an energy; as if Pollock put his life, his life blood his essense, somehow into the paint molecule; and thereby the painting "#5".

Is THIS possible? To metamorphisize paint and the painted surface in this way. Gosh knows I have tried to do this in my painting. There was something to how JP did this! It is for the Jackson Pollock soul to know exactly how he did this magic soul of a man.

How this conjuring magic happened, this alchemy; I'll never know exactly. But I do know this. Miracles happen. Jackson Pollock's work as such; they are miracles; living breathing entities of JP's soul miracle.

Simply; Amazing; beyond description. You have to be there in the room with a Jackson Pollock to understand exactly what I am trying to convey here. You'll get it then. Now, you may be wondering what it is, exactly, that I am trying to say. You must see a Jackson Pollock in your lifetime. Put it on your "Bucket List". Ok? ok!


Yes, the Pollock "is". "#5" l948 "is". It is breathing. It is life. Jackson knew this; he knew we would understand this; if you have a feeling self, a soul.

As you have probably figured out by now, Pollock is one of my favourite artists. I am in awe of the man, his times, his art.

And thinking about the kind of man Jacdson; from his unique history. How JP sacrificed so much, maybe even his life for his art. How Jackson knew the nitty gritty life of the visual arts, experienced the terrific highs and terrifying lows of the artist, as a person, as every role he had to become; through his art; he became.

A primordial need of artist to make a mark, make a meaningful stamp, etch, brushstroke on the conscience. To exist and have existed. That is all anyone us truly gets in this life. To make a difference through our works. You made a difference; that is art.

Fine art is this refined to an art form which is Life. You cannot get any more artistic than not only making a reasonable facsimile of life but actually making life on canvas; making the paint breathe, so to speak. I know real art when I see it; it is moving, breathing, living; never static.

Real art stands the test of time; it is classic; never boring; moving; past the walls of convention; into something more; something much more than we can imagine.

The creative force of creating something substantially new in the "now". Art: It is New and it lasts beyond years and into the future. It is so new that when someone else looks upon it, in the "now", it is, and it is, as one senses it, moving within, their being, the entity becomes one with the viewer and can feel the artist's energy, becomes it, and it changes them (the viewer; the art appreciator, what do you call the viewer; the watcher of art or Watchart, Artwatcha?

Makes them think, feel, beyond time, the moment has made them become. Moving. Art is moving, changeable, flux, expansive; ever-reaching beyond our set limitations of "what is" Art, anyway.

Jackson Pollock's art becomes this primal soup, this primo de facto force. JP's tour de force; his raison de etre, his reason to be; his energy. The energy of the artist.

I can understand that; his energy. JP's energy; it carries me away into a new place, a meditative place; a place where Jackson once was, where he lived where he touched the painted surface or did not touch the painted surface. Where JP splattered the paint in this dance of paint, this slow knowing dance energy, WHERE the paint BECAME JACKSON POLLOCK, a place where the artist exists still today. In this way, Jackson Pollock lives.

The art and the artist is alive. Jackson Pollock did not die in a car crash, while drunk, maybe depressed from no one understanding him, and his art. One and the same. Not the same. But the same to him. As we see the art we see the man of Jackson Pollock. Art being an outgrowth of the artist. A permanent snapshot of the artist's soul. What he intended. Became. That is art. Intention in the physical. Intention taking form. Taking on it's own entity, not taking a life, imparting life. Not departing into nothingness. Becoming the fullness in this world, made whole again.

Never apart yet not completely separate from the artist. An enigma made complete. The continuation of this dicotomy. A need to make whole from the hole. Substance from nothingness. The creative process as the Creator of these processes that are processed and remain a process.

Art is like giving birth to children. You develop the idea (the seed) and raise the seed to a little seedling, develop it to the point where it is time to be released to the public. It is the public's now. They own it. It is theirs. The publics. In the public museums to be appreciated to combine all our thoughts to make something; combined ownership of ideas or art, of being as a whole entity; a how one soul becomes the Spirit of Art; The Spirt of Man.

You know when that time ha come; it "is"; the "Isness" moment; as an artist it is obvious. The work fully conceived and realized as the artist wanted it, or not wanted it to go. It is a completeness that can never be complete; like the person the artist; moving, developing into something else which each perceptual frame it. It is framed by time anyway.

In the mind's eye; that spot which stops, but for a moment in time; taking us away from the everyday, mundane; making us think. That is art to me. ARt is everything and nothing. It is a philosophy; to make great. ARt makes great. Great things happen, great people happen, great times happen, spaces, colours, form, function, this is the world we want to make. Art makes these worlds. I like this. I love this. It is all or nothing. It is a passionate pursuit. Can you blame me?

Yes all those convergent images that are always so fast, speeding zippily moving from slow to fast from film frame to film footage to record all, everything possible of our multi-facetted realities. The buzz on the street, that which buzzes by us on the highway of life and makes a stick in the craw, a drip from a Jackson Pollock painting. I want to be that drip.

There where Jackson Pollock died on the highway that never existed and never dies; has never tasted or known virginal art death or life renewed. If we bring forth his work into the next template of time into the next frame of now. A fitting nothing if only to bring forth a tribute to the great man, the great artist and his great work. jj

images courtesy Wikipedia CC license.