JACKSON
POLLACK, ET AL.
"I've been doing more painting lately," she says, her eyes
sparkling like a Gaugin girl poised at the edge of a dark green forest.
"But I don't think you would like them," she adds, sipping
her coffee. Women, I think to myself, can be such frustrating creatures.
"Why do you say that?" I ask. "I don't know. They are
really abstract and you're more classical in your tastes." "But
I love the Impressionists," I say in a weak defense. "I'm
not Impressionistic." She stares at me as if I've just stepped
on her foot and am not getting off. "I'm really Abstract, really,"
she repeats. "Remember that painting in Thomas's office? You said
you didn't like it. I paint like that. Nope, I don't think you'll like
my paintings." If she could see the mess, the churning swirl of
color, texture, feelings, the massive abstract cacophony swirling inside
my head right now she certainly wouldn't be saying that. But I can't
let it rest, I can't. I love Abstract art, I really do. I admit I don't
understand it that well, but I am trying to learn more, finding it easy
to appreciate Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Umberto Boccioni, Jackson
Pollack, and the others. "I'd like to see some of your paintings
anyway. Maybe I could write poems to go along with them." (My audacity,
my hubris, knows no bounds, to think I can write a poem to go along
with anything, really, especially art, what an idiot I am.) "It
might be an interesting coming together of two art forms." "OK,"
she says right away, "I'll send a couple to you over email."
Yes, her eyes are sparkling like stars in the pink early dawn. In the
five years I have known her, I've never seen her as excited, as animated,
as this. She's so excited I can barely eat my lunch. When someone finds
something they love and feel impassioned about it is awe-inspiring.
She's an artist! My friend is really an artist. All she needs to do
is study the masters and practice like crazy, paint, paint, paint until
the knuckles of her pretty hands are sore as hell. Say, where is Jackson
Pollack when we need him anyway?