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PARTISAN REVIEW
it wasn't insulated or heated. And that means seasonal work.
Barbara Rose:
So he didn 't work in the winter?
Lee Krasner:
No, not dead, dead winter, until later on. At one point he
got one of those terrible kerosene stoves, and if he was working he
could ignite it, which terrified me. A little wooden barn, full of
pigment and all sorts of flammable stuff, heated by one of those
kerosene potbellies. You know, with a chimney and a big kerosene
container on the bottom. Very frightening.
Barbara Rose:
When he didn't paint, did he draw?
Lee Krasner:
Not necessarily. He really worked in cycles. When he was
working, the weather didn't especially stop him. He would put
layers and layers of clothing on and would ignite that kerosene thing
and work. But there were some months, about four or five months of
the year when it was bitter, bitter cold out there, when you really
couldn't work. Otherwise, he could manage somehow or other. He
did an enormous amount of work considering that there was no heat
in the barn.
Barbara Rose:
Did you feel that temperamentally the seasons had an
effect on him out there?
Lee Krasner:
At the time I wasn't aware of it as such. Certainly his
relationship to nature was intense. For example, the moon had a
tremendous effect on him, and he liked gardening. Just walking on
the beach in the wintertime, with snow on the sand was exciting. He
identified very strongly with nature.
Barbara Rose:
What do you mean by the moon having an effect
on him?
Lee Krasner:
He painted a series of moon pictures, and spoke about it
often. This is one of the things we had in common, because the
moon had quite an effect on me, too. It made me feel more emo–
tional , more intense-it would build a momentum of some sort for
me. He spoke of the moon quite often. He referred to
Portrait in a
Dream
as the " dark side of the moon." There was a whole series of
moon paintings-Moon
Woman, Mad Moon Woman, Moon
Woman Cuts the Circle.
Barbara Rose:
Do you know where his knowledge of mythology came
from?
Lee Krasner:
I think his interest in myth originally stems from one of
his high school teachers in California. I can't remember the man's
name, but he was interested in Eastern philosophy. He introduced
him to Eastern philosophy, and consequently he attended lectures by
