Ted's Blog

I'm excited to be teaching a class on painting this semester. Hopefully visitors will see some NEW work now, as well as some of my students' work and- as is the case today, a few posts about some of the greatest paintiters throughout history.


Jackson Pollock was born in Wyoming, grew up in Arizona, and went to an Arts high school in L.A. Three of his biggest influences were Mexican muralist David Alfaro Siquerios ( sometimes known as an expressionist, sometimes a surrealist) and Thomas Hart Benton, a regionalist from Kansas who was one of Pollock's professors in New York. You can see how Benton's rolling and dynamic compositions influenced Pollock, but Benton was much more conservative, he hated the direction his student took. He thought it was too abstract, too avante guard, too wierd, and trying too hard to compete with European artists.

Pollock is the most famous "Abstract Expressionsit." Some called what he did "Action-Painting" because it was really more a record of his physical actions than anything else. Most of his work is "non-objective," meaning it isn't supposed to look like any actual "thing," but it is supposed to express and hopefully evoke feelings. If nothing else, his work provokes discussion and debate about "what is Art?"

You may feel like you could do what Pollock did or that it doesn't show much skill or that "art should look like something," but if you let your self appreciate it for what it is- just a kinesthetic/motor activity, even as primative and childish as that may seem, there's a certain freedom and even fun to it. Like a cardio workout, a fight, or a dance, action-painting can be very theraputic. As a matter of fact, it may have been therapy for Pollock, who suffered from depression and struggled with depression. He became facinated with Psychologist Carl Jung's theory of archtypes and supposedly let it influence his work. (Not as mindless or meaningless as it looks!) Sadly, he was killed in a alchohol-related auto accident at the height of his popularity. He was only 44.
"Painting" from 1951
Jack the Dripper

Here is a detail from one of his more important works, "Full Phathom Five."


"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 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." ~Jackson Pollock 1912-1956

LEARN MORE ABOUT POLLOCK

PLAY AN ACTION PAINTING GAME