Young Paul's Scribbles

A Fantasy Piece with a Concrete Product

The artist known as Jackson Pollock was born Paul J. Pollock. Jackson was his middle name. His first name, Paul, had no “punch”, while Jackson Pollock sounded unique. Jackson had a certain ring to it. I use his first name, Paul, for the title of a series of drawings I would have imagined Paul Jackson Pollock might have made, rather than the drawings and sketches he actually put in his sketchbooks and onto sheets of white paper.

Pollock's early drawings depicted ubiquitous things and fragments of nondescript stuff, sometimes they represented objects and recognizable forms, but even when Pollock created biomorphic sketches and imaginary inventions he seemed to be "driving with one foot on the brake". In no case do we see evidence of the full-body dance we witness when he flung liquid paint onto canvas. There is nothing fluid about the drawings. This is logical as liquid paint and ink may flow, but standard drawing tools, such as pencil lead and charcoal do not, or no more than unthinned paint taken directly from a tube.

It is thanks to the fluid nature of common house paint that Pollock became known as Jackson and not plain, unknown Paul. Pencils were not the breakthrough tools to which Paul Jackson Pollock hitched his wagon.

But now, to the point of this piece of fantasy, which I call "Young Paul's Scribbles".

I was working in the studio on sheets of my handmade paper. I employ layers of fluid paint which I brush on, then allow them to dry before applying another layer. I turn on fans and turn up the heat to speed the drying. Luckily, my paint dries more quickly than Jackson's house paint. He had to wait days and perhaps even more for each layer to solidify. Twenty-four hours later I am attacking the thing that hopefully will become an artwork.

One day, while staring at the clock and wishing away the hours, I let myself coopt young Pollock's body, i.e. pretend to inhabit Paul's spirit, and let him grab an indiscriminate fistful of colored pencils to tug and push around a sheet of paper as if they were fluid, controlled by muscle memory and not ruled by eyes or preconceived notions or goals. William Stanley Hayter, whom both Pollock and I knew and spent time with, would have smiled at the Surrealist spirit of the resultant series of drawings which I call "Young Paul's Scribbles".

Postscript: I was born a little Catholic boy. My middle name was Amos. My first name was Floyd. Sandy was my nickname. As a Catholic boy I was allowed to select my own Confirmation name. I chose the name Paul. Funny, don’t you think?

Don't you dare call me Paul.

Colored pencil on rag paper 23 ½” by 30 ½”, 2025