Links and Art Discussion

My first Painting Instructor: Oliver Jackson, Abstract Expressionist

“I get tired of people asking me what I think about my work,” he says. “What am I supposed to say? I think it’s great shit – I made it, why wouldn't I say that? But what weight does that have to you? Not very much. You have to experience the work and I don’t want to get in the way by telling you what I think.” So, I’m going to respect that and let you draw your own conclusions." Oliver Jackson.

Jackson was an interesting person as well as a very good art instructor. As an abstract expressionist he had a lot to offer his students. Coming right from high school with all my restrictions, it was a revelation on so many levels. The painting philosophy in the crazy art room was to loosen up, let go, don't take it all so seriously and trash it if it doesn't work. I flew with the careless freedom and thrived.

The crazy art room in a deserted restaurant housed a sculpture by Ernie Trova, an altered door, that the artist had thrown out. One of our students or professors snagged it and it hung at our entry. It was a statement of who we were.

I knew Jackson as an accomplished artist and teacher. He was vibrant and deeply intelligent. Often critical and demanding, Jackson was also very concerned about his students artistic growth. He inspired me and I opened my mind in ways that were alien to me at the time. Meeting Jackson changed me and changed my direction. I had decided I wanted to be an artist before I went to the community college but finally, here I had a role model for the first time.

In many ways he was not accessible. I never thought of him as an equal but rather, someone to admire. However, Jackson was truly the most influential of my life in terms of artistic philosophy and as well the first person I met outside my blue-collar, south St. Louis, close-minded environment that I could admire. He was classy and cultured. He modeled a highly-educated adult with proper boundaries for those of us at an important juncture in life. He showed a creative elegance in in personal style that I had not referenced yet.

I'm not an abstract expressionist but I'm guided in some ways by it. Jackson also taught the fundamentals of oil painting. Buying paint, color, mixing, stretching canvas, building stretching frames, display frames and types of priming were a part of our education. Sometimes the art is in the details and Jackson knew it all.

Francis Bacon, Art Born of a Violent Past

Another of my favorites is Francis Bacon, Irish born, English artist. He is very famous for extreme paintings that depict violent, repressed and anxious feelings. The reason I like his work is that it's so personal, so intense and not mainstream. His art has impact born of a terrific talent, scarred past and deep emotion. No, it's not pretty but it is powerful. The paintings come from his soul. There is great painterly quality in Bacon's work, the scrubbing and changing and moving of the paint on the surface of the canvas pulls the viewer into the art. This style works to bring more intensity to the emotional content of the work.

Growing up in Ireland, Francis Bacon experienced violence at an early age. He described an experience of hiding in a ditch and viewing a violent political murder as a small boy. He was forever marked by his insecure an violent childhood. A lot is made of the fact that Bacon was gay. At the time he was alive it was less accepted but also he had wild life, gambling, drinking in London's Soho which was somewhat a reflection on his life choice. He called this lifestyle, "rough trade".

He was born in 1909 and died in 1992. In his last years he settled down and lived a quiet life. I saw photos of his studio with trash piled everywhere. He liked the chaos and felt that was the best soil for his creative life.

An interesting quote by Margaret Thatcher concerning Francis Bacon: "That man who paints those dreadful pictures." Dreadful? Maybe. Life can be dreadful and for Bacon it was his place and his time to give meaning to the feeling of anxiety that a violent past produces.

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