The Daily Union - February 3,, 2008 ~ Gail Parsons

I started talking last week about modern art and gave a brief overview of a generic term that classifies several art movements. Modern art is simply a genre of art created from the mid 19th century which strayed from what had been accepted as the traditional techniques and styles.
One of my favorite artists is Jackson Pollock. A great Web site www.jacksonpollock.org allows people to experience the flow of color and design very much in his style. Pollock had the ability to lose himself in his paining and completely free himself from what was considered the norm.
One critic of his time first coined the phrase “action artist” to describe the style that Pollock used in his flinging, and dripping of paint. But before one thinks that it is so easy to create works like Pollock’s you’ve got to understand that there was a lot more to what he did and how he did it than simply throwing paint.
The simple action of abandoning the use of traditional materials allowed him, and other artists behind him the courage to experiment, to try new and bold techniques – painting wasn’t about perfection.
I still hear it today, artists being told that their work isn’t that good because their colors are either too dull or too bright, or the figure is too stiff or too realistic.
Thank goodness Pollock didn’t obey the laws of tradition. His paintings might appear at first glance as a chaotic mass of confusion were in actuality carefully executed. His process of creating was spontaneous, and no two paintings every have, or ever will be alike.
Another misconception that people have with his work is that it is easy to create – how hard can it be to fling around some paint. Fact is, while it is not hard to throw paint, a good painting has to have symmetry in color and design. A project that several students participated in a one summer allowed them the opportunity to break away from the shadowing and straight lines. We hung sheets on the fence and let them use, water guns, sponges, brushes, water balloons, hands and feet, and anything else they could come up with, to get the paint on the sheets. They took turns and started watching the way the colors came together; they realized when the symmetry of one side was off because there was too much paint, or too much of one color.
The key to the project though happened when one student messed it up. She got a little ahead of herself and a little excited and put a thick streak of black paint right down the side – the symmetry was gone. The masterpiece was ruined in a split moment – but the lesson dawned on every one of those students in moment.
Pollock’s work is similar – his choice of color; his choice of which color goes first and which goes last; his choice of flinging paint off a brush or using a syringe; it’s all based on choices.
Whether you like his work or not, the emotion that permeates from it is undeniable. In some of his work you can feel the fluidity of life, other pieces – especially as his depression and alcoholism set in, evokes a stronger emotion of controlled chaos, possibly it mirrored his life that was spiraling out of control.
At age 44, he died behind the wheel in an alcohol-related crash that also took the life of one of his passengers.