As I Say, I As An Abstract

Painting, For Me, When It Really 'happens,' Is As Miraculous As Any Natural Phenomenon - As Say, A Lettuce Leaf. By 'happens,' I Mean The Painting In Which The Inner Aspect Of Man And His Outer Aspects Interlock.

We Get Used To A Certain Kind Of Colour Of Form Or Format, And It's Acceptable. And To Puncture That Is Sticking Your Neck Out A Bit. And Then Pretty Soon, That's Very Acceptable.

In The Late 30s The Name Pollock Was Totally Unknown And Unheard Of.

I Went Into My Own Black-out Period Which Lasted Two Or Three Years Where The Canvases Would Simply Build Up Until They'd Get Like Stone And It Was Always Just A Gray Mess. The Image Wouldn't Emerge, But I Worked Pretty Regularly. I Was Fighting To Find I Knew Not What, But I Could No Longer Stay With What I Had.

At That Point It Certainly Would Be Called Abstract. That Is To Say, You Had A Model And There'd Be One Or Two Or Three People There Drawing The Model But Otherwise You Had Abstractions All Around The Room, Even Though The Model Was In Front Of You.