Art

I was standing in front of this Jackson Pollock painting with a friend yesterday and she asked me what I thought of it. I told her this story:

When I was in art school, abstract art was the "in" thing- you needed a portfolio that the staff approved of to be accepted at the school. I'm not sure how I got in, because most of my fellow-students regarded themselves as abstract artists.  I was a realist- or at least felt that it was important to have basic drawing skills- a lot of the kids I went to school with couldn't draw a cup if their life depended on it.  

It was hard, because those kids got most of the praise in class- I ended up as an illustration major because I felt like I fit in better with those teachers and students. I had to take a lot of core fine arts classes though, which was good for me, but they were frustrating. The worst was a sculpture class- the teacher was an old, gay, chain-smoking alcoholic, pretty much a miserable person.  I didn't realize that the first half of the term with him would be abstract sculpture; I tried to make interesting things that he would approve of (and give me a decent grade for) but he didn't like anything I did in the class.  I was frustrated and about to give up.  One day, when he stepped out of the classroom (probably for a quick hit from his flask) I said to some friends, "I don't care about this anymore. I'll never make him happy." I turned around and threw some slabs of clay backwards over my shoulder- wherever they landed, that was my sculpture.  He came back into the room to critique our work and stopped in front of mine in amazement.  He was thrilled- said I had finally "gotten it!", called the class over to talk about the contradicting planes and undulating surfaces, or something.  

So, as I said to my friend yesterday, that is what I think of this Jackson Pollock painting.  Besides an interesting choice of colors, I think he pretty much lucked out.  I mean, he's no John Singer Sargent.