Today was Day SIXTEEN and it was a total treat because I not only had a special guest star painter, but two!  My friends Karli and John both painted their own paintings with me today!  AND the artist was Jackson Pollock so it was going to be a blast!  Or a splat!  We tarped off a huge portion of the art space and went paint crazy.

Remember to watch the video of our day at the very bottom of the blog!

This is a day that I will have a huge amount of pictures so…beware or enjoy.  I present to you…

Jackson Pollock!

Paul Jackson Pollock (January 28, 1912 – August 11, 1956), known as Jackson Pollock, was an influential American painter and a major figure in the abstract expressionist movement. He was well known for his unique style of drip painting.

During his lifetime, Pollock enjoyed considerable fame and notoriety, a major artist of his generation. Regarded as reclusive, he had a volatile personality, and struggled with alcoholism for most of his life. In 1945, he married the artist Lee Krasner, who became an important influence on his career and on his legacy.

Pollock died at the age of 44 in an alcohol-related, single-car accident; he was driving. In December 1956, several months after his death, Pollock was given a memorial retrospective exhibition at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. A larger, more comprehensive exhibition of his work was held there in 1967. In 1998 and 1999, his work was honored with large-scale retrospective exhibitions at MoMA and at The Tate in London.

In 2000, Jackson Pollock was the subject of an Academy Award–winning film Pollock directed by and starring Ed Harris.  Read the rest of his bio here.

I need to tell a funny story that really belongs to Karli.  A couple days before today (Jackson Pollock Day!) she started

researching his paintings for inspiration (which is more than my breezy research I did this morning).  She studied various paintings and liked them, but the colors didn’t really jump out at her.  Then she found a specific piece and she was drawn in.  She fell in love with the blues and the subtle yellows.  She loved it to bits.  When she clicked on the photo she realized that it wasn’t a painting, but the floor boards of his barn where he painted!  Hilarious!  I’ve posted one of the boards!

Today was a day that I wished I was painting on a 20 x 20 foot canvas…or larger!  I think I will do that in the future because the process of painting even my tiny canvas was so much fun.  I’m also thinking of other color choices.  As I painted and splattered the paints on, I got more and more excited and then started getting worried.  I thought things like, “Why’d I add that blue?  I just ruined the whole painting.”  Then Karli would remind me…you can’t ruin it, just dry it and do it again.  Yup, she was right!  I was also worried that I was going too far.  About 47 times during painting and splashing and splattering I thought, “Okay, I’m done…it’s definitely finished right now.”  Then I would pace around the piece and inevitably add more splashes of paint.  At

the last moment came where I decided to stop using the same 5 colors.  I thought ORANGE and PURPLE!  I only did one splatter of each and I knew in my heart that the piece was complete!

I really hope you enjoy my photo journey and final piece as much as I did.  Thanks Jackson Pollock.  We were super excited about celebrating you today and we had a blast.  We did get a bad case of Pollock’s feet however.  I’m sure it’ll be better tomorrow.

xoxo,

Linda