6 Comments

I saw the title and was wondering what you were going to do with Pollock. Not disappointed. Excellent!

Expand full comment

Wonderful! I had fun with it. Glad you enjoyed it!

Expand full comment

10 words

Birds feeding for winter, all I see are is their beaks

Expand full comment

Love that you are doing this series. This piece on Pollock reminds me of Amy’s stream of consciousness piece from yesterday.

A beta reader for one of my books, a publisher of soldier memoirs, never critiqued my writing rather he replied with thoughts and stories the writing inspired in him.

I applaud you absorb art in all its facets, and allow it and you to just be. Reminds me of drinking brandy in an early morning bar after all the bars have closed.

I can relate to Pollock in part, but then I also view his work as a catalyst in how I’m different. The differences between paint as paint and paint as a magical illusion. The difference between blind passion and clean, clear-eyed focus. But I do that naturally to every artwork I see, absorb and reflect, then compare levels of perception, awareness, philosophy, humanity, and psychology. Since I live alone I don’t need to worry about being a hard ass or rigid in my dissecting views—I love them and they inspire my creativity.

Expand full comment

I am glad you are enjoying them. I look at them as mostly a writing exercise and a kind of defense (in a small way) of painting in general and the notion of not being able to see anything in them, or just not "getting" art. If I can pull these things out of them I suppose anybody could in their own way. With Pollock, (and abstraction in general) there is less visual narrative (obviously) so I need to pierce into the work by means of contextualization, period and locale. This helps place the work in the broader aesthetic context. And you are correct, there is no critique from me, only being with the piece and seeing what is can be brought through. With Pollock, I was speaking through the culture that might have called him crazy as a tool for placement. In this one case, I would want a Pollock naysayer to go "damn, just maybe it makes a little more sense than I thought!"

In Les Demoiselles d'Avignon, I found myself on google maps, strolling through the Barcelona corridors and getting the feel of the alleyways where those women would have been. Same with de Chirico's The Disquieted Muses. I "walked" along those streets on the street view setting. So, I do get a bit of an education for the framework. It can be a lot of work actually for just 1000 words but I always make it through to exactly that.

I think if art were given a more creative context on some level, rather than a judgement, perhaps people would find themselves more open to it. But I don't have a specific driving motive for any of that usually, I just enjoy writing them.

Thanks for reading these! I am also open to suggestions on paintings, I am sure you would have one or two. No pressure!

Hope your Space Series is coming along well, Michael! 💫💫

Expand full comment

Did AI write this?

Expand full comment