I used to have a thing for Jackson Pollock and his kind. I would sit in museums, trying to look very deep and intellectual and mysterious, trying to think very deep and profound thoughts while waiting for Mr. Pollock or Mr. de Kooning or Mr. Rothko to hit me with an even deeper emotional epiphany that one would expect from, I don’t know, Gandhi or something.
“Oh the power of the profound,” I would muse, “oh the abstract expressionists… a authentic image of human reaction to increasingly chaotic world of the nuclear nineteen fifties family.”
Yes. You are correct. I used to be a professional dilettante. If you know anyone who pays for this service, by all means, send that email on over.
I imagined Pollock as an angsty artistic genius beating out his emotions with paint. I fervently defended his works among those subscribed to the “my five year old could do that” theory of art.
“You just don’t understand, ” I’d say channeling my best look of genuine sorrow and perplexity for this obviously misguided intellectual imbecile, “This, this,” I’d stress pointing to the vast painting “is reality, an utter expression of feeling, it’s more real than any realistic painting; it’s the depths below the material.”
(Above: Jackson Pollock's Lavendar Mist, 1950. Not casacade of raw emotion materialized paint, but a very deliberate, thought out painting.)
I’d sweep into a dramatic ending, with triumphal look of pity that said, “I am sorry you’re a shallow materialistic sheep that cares more about Britney Spears than politics or the environment or philosophy or world poverty or literature or art or, or, or anything of any true meaning in this world.”
Whipping my head back to the painting, I'd continue working my hardest at thinking deep thoughts and trying not to fidget while awaiting my epiphany about the meaning of life.
Well, you see, my analysis was very wrong. Very, very, very wrong.
My self righteous Pollock fantasies were brutally crushed during a rather grueling class my last semester at Berkeley, taught by one of CAL’s most famous art historians. I was in love with this woman; her lectures sent me on a rocket trip through the artistic solar system.
Anyways, she asks some question about a Pollock painting and I shoot my arm up high in the air, trying my darnedest not to wave it madly and literally bit-ting my tongue to prevent,
“OOOHHHH ME ME ME ME ME ME! PICK ME!!! OVER HERE!! MEEE!” from avalanching out of my mouth.
She looked severely around the room, as she generally did, pierced her eyes on me and with a deep, slow and menacing voice said, “Please, Allese”.
I spouted off some answer about unbounded emotion and feeling and passion and reality that left me sputtering in my own words, keenly aware that now some 100 students and, like my hero professor was staring back at me with wide eyes.
“Uh…. and, and and, yeah, so yeah. Right. So, yeah thus, that’s well that’summ that’s umm it.”
My face flushed in heat and I could see students staring incredulously at me and mentally comparing me
to that Miss America contestant that answered,
“I personally believe...
In fact, I was sure they were analyzing my brown hair to make sure it was actually real, and I wasn’t just Miss. Georgia or something fleeing from a life of pageantry and children’s charities to take refuge in the most Marxian place on earth.
Silence. A fucking deafening silence. Great job Allese. You. Officially. Suck.
Finally my icy brilliant professor decides to end my misery and speak. Or so I thought.
“Actually. No. That is completely wrong. But thank you for your… your… rather… impassioned answer.
I’m sure however” her shrill voice rising , “that is what Jackson Pollock and the abstract expressionist would have liked you to think.”
Great, I think, now who’s the friggin sheep and you think you’re soooo smart.
She continued, “I want to make it crystal clear that every SINGLE” her voices rises to new shrilling high “OF THESE STROOOOKES were apppsolutttelyyyy InTentionaL. The abstract expressionist were absolutely concerned with the medium of paint and it’s capacities and not any emotional hooky poky. Allese, may I suggest you do the reading before you come to class next time.”
Ok. It’s official I am depths despair. I am in the depths of despair so much so that I swear embarrassment himself is staring back down on me laughing and actually feeling sorry, if that’s possible, for me. Like,
“Hey kid, I didn’t create this level of humiliation, but man it’s pretty damn funny. Heh heh…. Man that sucks.”
So now, I get to be Miss. Georgia and the prissy smart girl who’s really just a big slacker pretending to look smart.
As she went on and the pink heat drained from my cheeks, I learned that Pollock’s work was less rooted in some ansgty combustion of bodily and emotional spontaneity and more in meticulous and careful planning- usually with the objective of a museum wall.
The big crash of my professional dilettantism occurred to me as I was writing about schedules, habits and intention. Recently, I have been struggling with maintaining habits that create and ground me in my day. Though I find habitual individuals wildly interesting- (‘really?? So, every morning you get up, return emails and then go to the gym? Every morning??), and often drink other people routines in with the excitement I’d reserve for an long anticipated drink at the end of the work week, I can’t seem to stick to my own.
Tune into part two... where I talk about why habits ARE important...
Comments