Quotes from Jackson Pollock

My painting does not come from the easel.

When I am in my painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing.

Bums are the well-to-do of this day. They didn't have as far to fall.

It [abstract art] should be enjoyed just as music is enjoyed after a while you may like it or you may not.

My concern is with the rhythms of nature I work inside out, like nature.

Every good painter paints what he is.

The strangeness will wear off and I think we will discover the deeper meanings in modern art.

I have no fear of making changes, destroying the image, etc., because the painting has a life of its own.

The painting has a life of its own

When I say artist I mean the man who is building things - creating molding the earth - whether it be the plains of the west - or the iron ore of Penn. It's all a big game of construction - some with a brush - some with a shovel - some choose a pen.

When I'm painting, I'm not aware of what I'm doing. It's only after a get acquainted period that I see what I've been about. I've no fears about making changes for the painting has a life of its own.

The secret of success is… to be fully awake to everything about you.

The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.

He drove his kind of realism at me so hard I bounced right into nonobjective painting.

My paintings do not have a center, but depend on the same amount of interest throughout.

I'm very representational some of the time, and a little all of the time. But when you're painting out of your unconscious, figures are bound to emerge.

The modern artist... is working and expressing an inner world - in other words - expressing the energy, the motion, and other inner forces.

In response to the question, 'How do you know when you're finished?' Pollock replied, 'How do you know when you're finished making love?

How do you know when you're finished making love?

Abstract painting is abstract. It confronts you. There was a reviewer a while back who wrote that my pictures didn't have any beginning or any end. He didn't mean it as a compliment, but it was.

A method of painting is a natural growth out of a need. I want to express my feelings rather than illustrate them. Technique is just a means of arriving at a statement.

The painting has a life of its own. I try to let it come through.

The process is only a means to an end-creating the painting I want. It doesn't mean anything itself. It's only a way of creating a result.

Love is friendship set to music.