Support Local Artists…

Photo:  Social Income
Unsplash

Support local artists…

Photo:  RANDOM INSTITUTE
Unsplash

Sometimes…

Sometimes
the artist
becomes
the art

 

Photo:  Juhø Man
Unsplash

Artist…a poem

she sat in her studio
dreaming
lost in ideas
and colors
forms
lines
and movement
pictures
drifted by
then faded
as the light
around her paled
and left her
still in her chair
her head
filled with
incredible
visions

 

Photo:  Cottonbro
Pexels

Jackson Pollock, Artist, A Story poem

I was an artist
going nowhere
my mind was
TROUBLED
I had bouts of
depression
I had no
self confidence
I DRANK
I worked
but nothing
was happening
then I met artist
LEE KRASNER
and she saw something in me
that I couldn’t see in myself
she sold me
she made me
she believed in me
but I was never truly
sane
she sent me for help
and for short bursts of time
I was better
and then I wasn’t
we married
and moves
into a ramshackle place
for the summer
and things were good

but friends started coming round
started staying with us
getting their own places close to us
partying
and I started drinking again
Lee never lost hope
no matter how much it cost her
she stuck by me
she believed in me
when I rarely ever believed in myself
she would make
something wonderful happen for me
but fame sent me spiraling
I would show up at my openings
and ruin everything
by fighting
falling down drunk
being cruel
or just being my silent self
I painted
I cheated
I was out of control
violent
and toward the end
I fell in love
with a younger woman
it hurt Lee so much
but I told her
that the girl made me feel
young
as if I could do things again
and Lee did what she always did
she waited
one night
on my way to a piano recital
driving drunk
in my Olds Convertible
with my new lover and her girlfriend
I was too out of it to keep going
so I turned around
and was speeding down the road
with the two girls screaming at me
to stop the car
but it was too late
I lost control
and suddenly
a girl was dead and
so was I
it was finally over
my demons
were put to rest
and Lee was free
even through
I knew she would
continue to take care of me
even after death
Lee never stopped
believing in me

 

Jackson Pollock: en.wikipedia.org
Lee & Jackson:  pictify.saatchigallery.com

Lee Krasner, Artist, A Story poem

 

rules were never meant for me
I broke all of them
if that upset the people around me
and it did
I didn’t care
my life belonged to me
I was an artist
I was political
I was ALIVE
I was not cut out
to follow in the footsteps
of those who came before me
I studied
I worked
I struggled
I lived on almost nothing
I BECAME
I FOUGHT
for the right
to be a
FEMALE
ARTIST
against men
who held the keys to the
art castles
I did
EVERYTHING
I WAS TOUGH
and I could best
ANYONE
I slept around
we all did
I smoked
I drank
I clawed
and scratched
my way up
and why not
then I met
JACKSON
POLLOCK
I thought
he was brilliant
we moved in together
he had more problems
than most
but I saw what he could do
so I stuck by him
for his art
and because I loved him
I turned my attention
toward making HIM
a success
yes
I was an amazing artist
but I thought he was
incredible
so I did
EVERTHING
for him
if not for me
you wouldn’t know his name
ask anyone
they’ll tell you
I got him shown
got him agents
galleries
connections
he lacked the ability
to do anything
for himself
and he drank
and cheated
and then he drank some more
he was violent
out of control
mean
and
drunk
until the
in the car accident
that took his life
and the life of his lover’s
girlfriend
after that
I continued to care for his work
making sure it was in the right
institutions
and
museums
and yes
I was finally
DISCOVERED
and I fought for that as well
I have had one woman shows
all over the world
I’m hanging in the best
institutions
and museums
but for many years
I was known as
Pollock’s wife
who was also a painter
no name
no recognition
just one more woman artist
lost in a world
made of men
who RFUSE
TO SEE US
for what we are
AS GOOD
OR BETTER
THAN THEY ARE
but I made it
I’m there
I fought to the bitter end
no one could stop me
and no one ever did
I was LEE KRASNER
I never backed down from anything

 

 

Lee’s signature:  guildhall.org
Lee with painting:  artandobject.com
Quote:  wisefamousquotes.com

Vincent…a story poem

sure
not many people
are willing to cut off their
earlobe
to prove a point
but I never was
like many people
love makes us do
strange things
I admit
it didn’t work out
the way I thought it would
I thought she would realize
how deeply I loved her
instead she was
well
horrified
she didn’t realize
the intensity of my
ardor
Gauguin
didn’t understand either
he was competitive
jealous
at how quickly
I produced my work
I loved him
and never wanted
to make him feel
threatened
uncomfortable
or
less
I thought we were
friends
no one
understood my
PASSION
except for Theo
my brother
never let me down
he was my support
he always believed in me
sold my work
gave me money
life was difficult
I felt things so deeply
people today
say that I was sick
but I didn’t feel sick
I felt driven
the colors were alive
I had to get them down
on canvas
before they were gone
I had to be
true to myself
everything was
IMMEDIATE
but no matter
how I am judged
in the future
I know
who I was
and how I felt
I loved life
I just didn’t
fit in to it
the way
others did
and we all know that
there’s no room
in the world
for those
who
do not
fit
in

 

picture:  publicdomainpictures.net

Passion is a living thing…it’s what a person IS.

Image

Lee Krasner…

So, I finished the book.  You probably don’t care, but…after Pollock died, the book was just great.  The last 100 pages are about Krasner, her art and I really enjoyed it.  The other 400+ pages, were okay but the real value of the book, for me, was the ending.  So, not as bad as I originally thought.  I shouldn’t have written about it before I finished it but really, more than 400 pages until we actually get to know about what she did and hear from her…took way too long.

Okay, so…

I told you that I’m reading a book on the artist Lee Krasner.  The thing is, it’s written in such a way that I can see every step of her life played out as if there was no other way it could have been.  It’s as if there was nothing else she could have done, to end up where she did.  One person, led to another and another after that, doors were opened, or closed, all in order to get her to where she ended up.  She’s just meeting Jackson Pollock who,  as you know, she eventually marries.

Her life with Pollock was a nightmare (I read about that before.  He was a drunk and a little insane).  As I said, she’s just going to meet him now.  We all know what happens next but she doesn’t.  She still believes that she’s making choices, when people are simply coming in and out of her life,  pointing her in one direction or another.  That’s what happens to all of us, I think, but we’re too close to see it.

It was an eye-opening experience to see all of that.  We can’t know what Pollock would have been without her but it seems likely that he wouldn’t have been nearly as famous, or even well known, not without her.  His life played out the way it should have too.  All of our lives do, even if we will never really be able to see it.  Everyone we meet, everything that happens to us, is there for a reason, no matter how unimportant those people or things may seem.  Are our lives predetermined or is there a Plan “A” and “B”?  Or are the things that happen to us simply random.

Krasner was a rebel.  A strong woman who knew how to fight for what she wanted.  She made Pollock, sold him, and his art to everyone, because she believed in him.  She was the better artist, in my opinion.  She carried him.

Anyway, I learned something about how our lives play out.  Interesting.  Amazing, actually, how no matter where she was, the right person was there, for whatever reason s/he was needed for.  She, of course, was in their lives to effect them as well.