Pollock's Poem

[Artguy]

Pollock's Poem
Mixed Media On Kraft Paper
16" x 16"
The white lines in the background are made with a whiteout pen. I love finding odd ways of doing things.

[the mingo]

thx for this, Kurt.

[jimboloco]

• I'll try again, I got a stupid popup from Dominoes Pizza and erased my prior post @#$%^&*(!)
  
  I first saw a Pollack in the Detroit Institute of Fine Arts in late 1975. That was a terrible year for me. I had completed a first semester of an MBA program at the U of New Hampshire, 3.8 gpa, but was struggling with depression and unresolved issues from the Vietnam War. During Tet of '75, the fall of Saigon happened. I was drinking, smoking pot and had dropped some bad laced mescaline and was plotting the advancement of the NVA forces, so I dropped out and left without notice in March. I went back to Detroit and eventually got a job driving a taxi inside the city, south of Eight Mile Road, because I was sick of the superficial white American Dream and knew there was a richer experience to be had. I had a copy of Jantzen's History of Art.
  
  I walked into this room and saw the Pollock painting from about 30 feet away. It was enormous, like maybe 12 feet by 8 feet and it literally gave me some release, a new dimension of experience. Partly because of the largeness, I know, but it made me a believer in art as something worthwhile to experience and even participate in. I took a beginners drawing class at a private art studio down near the river by Windsor and was thrilled, if tentative, it was something new that gave me some hope. As it turned out, I did some hard travelling, wound up back in Detroit in 1977-78 and this time I took some drawing and design classes at Wayne State, then more hard travelling, wound up in NYC and took a drawing class over and over at the Art Students' League.
  
  When a young lady spit on a young man, wearng a Marines T shirt,at the League in the basement, I was flipped, visited the Vet Center on Broadway, unable to talk about it. Eventually I got my pack, rode the Hudsen Valley train up north, then walked and hitched across Conn, Mass (where I bivouacked on an island in the Mass Turnpike above it), then in New Hampshire, had a flashback experience, wound up bivouacked against an old stone wall, surrounded on all sides by an oxbow stream, in March, 1982 with snow patches. I let it go the next morning, waded thru the cold water and called my uncle for help, flew to Louisiana and kept drawing while starting to rebuild my psyche and had an art show at the opening of the first Vet Center there, 1984. Now, 2011, I am returning to the Vet Center again in St. Petersburg, as a damned combat veteran who saw the whole place, most of it,flying a hearse, and ordinance, etc and learning how to recover once again, from a divorce, loss of job due to being manic and stressed, and testing positive for pot. I essentially self-terminated, because I would not disclose this before the urine test. It's OKAY, I am getting psychiatric treatment for bipolar manic depression on a mood stabilizer,at the Veterans' Administration, living on the lamb, on social secuirty and food stamps, not paying the mortgage or credit cards, have one good antiwar Nam Vet friend etc, straight now, getting some references, have reconnected with a wonderful zen group and also taoist tai chi, plus doing some little bit of sketching. It's a great way to focus, on a saw palmetto.
  
  I think this work of yours, and the works that you have done, are not as maddeningly intense as Pollocks. Yours are healthier. He wanted to be on the edge, and was. I find in this work that the layers above the intense white brushwork are mystical, shamanic, archetypical, and they heal. The modest size of this work 16"x16" also is a statement about yourself, not a flaming ego in the pursuit of historical greatness, but someone who is practised and spiritual and humane, which is a far greater achievement. You should be making a name for yourself anyhow, but it is incidental to what you are doing. Blessings

ink and wash from St Pete museum of fine arts, 1989

[the mingo]

damn fine piece of expression here, Jim.

[jimboloco]

thanks mingoloco
i'll have to do some more looking
on this scroll
at the paintings that are here
your's too
uplifting i mean

[Artguy]

Damn Jimbo, I wish I could find a tear to shed, but I'm all out as I too have been recently diagnosed as bipolar and generally thought of as nuts. As I recover with mood pills and an amazing shrink I find myself gushing for no particular reason, but now that you have given me one I am dry. This is the first time in my existence, and i never thought as a young man that I would even make it this far, that I have ever been reviewed from the gut like this. As a side note I find myself somehow disappointed with this piece and a couple of others lately. Thanks for the hope.

[jimboloco]

interesting, bipolar
we are the world
i hope that you go on surviving
i am not ready to die
forgetaboutit

Taoist Tai Chi is incredible, unbelieveable no matter how ya spell it
http://www.taoist.org/content/standard.asp
Canada is the world headquarters
Florida is the American headquarters
Toronto (Bathurst Street) http://toronto.taoist-tai-chi.org/conte ... urstStreet

Toronto (D'Arcy Street) http://toronto.taoist-tai-chi.org/conte ... arcyStreet

Toronto (Kingston Road) http://toronto.taoist-tai-chi.org/conte ... ngstonRoad

this is a mind and body saver (hint)

your dissappointment, no matter how ya spell it,
is simply the difference between the vision that you have and the end result
i am greatly impressed without patronising
as you know i say what is on my mind or don't say anythang
i love this artwork it is a masterpiece
and immaculate