On a sticky August afternoon, Katie and I took some friends to visit Jackson Pollock and Lee Krasner’s studio in Springs, Long Island. The house and grounds were unremarkable, but Pollock’s freestanding studio was arresting. All gazes were focused on the floor with its lassos of drips, but I barely looked down, for this was not an altar for genuflection but a place to work. I was looking for outlets, checking ventilation, imagining where the refrigerator would go, and wondering if you could get Indian delivered. Every studio I’ve ever been to has drips and splatters, and this was one more on that long list. I abhor the term “drip painting”—people pay too much attention to Pollock’s technique, how he painted as opposed to why; I don’t think of Lucio Fontana as a hole puncher or Fred Tomaselli as a pill pusher. Pollock let process lead him until technique vanished for an overall experience that washes over us. Focusing on drips is missing the extraordinary power of those paintings. We know that Pollock looked at aboriginal art, Tibetan painting, and the fluid webs of Janet Sobel, who was painting with sticks and drips in Paris in 1945. Mark Tobey was making all-over paintings before 1946, and perhaps Pollock saw those too, but where he took it is more important than where he got it. Pollock worked his later canvases on the floor, which took them from the Western tradition of easel painting into realms of Tibetan sand painting and ritualistic dance, allowing him to be in the image.
Whether brush, knife, squeegee, or broom, a tool is simply an extension of the body and intellect of the artist. Paint is not only the delivery system for ideas, but the flesh and blood of them, as William Carlos Williams wrote, “No Ideas but in Things.” That said,
Pollock’s control of materials was stunning, and any Bozo who says, “I could do that” is full of clown shit. They couldn’t, and, more important, they didn’t. I want to unroll eleven feet of unprimed duck on the cold floor, give them a gallon of black enamel and a stick, and say, “OK, dazzle me.”
Not just anyone can be an artist; it takes intent, execution, rejection, failure, Tylenol, and endless practice. That’s before you can even think about showing in galleries. You must also possess extraordinary empathy, circumspection, resilience, and the sense of humor that comes from living an insensible life. Then, it all must be woven into a cohesive, visually compelling body of work followed by another, and another. Not so easy. The comedian Steve Martin said, “It’s easy to be great. It’s hard to be good.”
Moreover, an artist must have a working relationship with solitude. When I was seventeen, I stayed alone in my bedroom doing what every horny teenage guy does: making classical drawings. I drew until my wrist hurt, switching from my right hand to my left, sometimes using both. I drew on every surface I could, even squeezing out multiples until I couldn’t produce anymore. Although gifted and talented, I still couldn’t call myself an artist. I had to live life to have something to say.
Pablo Picasso was an exception. The breadth and pathos of his early Blue Period paintings, like The Tragedy (1903), reveal a sophistication and empathy rarely seen in a twenty-year-old. I have looked at a lot of painting and keep coming back to his staggering genius. Genius is one of the most overused words in our language. Someone who scores high on an IQ test or can recall data with the accuracy and speed of a computer is not a genius but simply has proficiency with numbers, an aptitude for testing, and terrific potential. However, genius is measured by achievement, not potential. Don’t promise us; show us. Picasso was a genius, but he also worked harder than a choirboy in a porn shop.