90
PARTISAN REVIEW
would just stay with it until it was resolved for him.
Barbara Rose:
It
was my impression that a lot was destroyed because of
the high risk element.
Lee Krasner:
Not at all. His assuredness at that time is frightening to
me. The confidence, and the way he would do it was unbelievable at
that time.
Barbara Rose:
How did this confidence evolve? Was it an outcome of
all the years of drawing and the translation of that drawing into a
larger gesture?
Lee Krasner:
That's right. Because the backlog of what he has, the
drawings you speak of, was quite a body of work. At some point he
was ready to let it all happen in the scale he wanted it to happen on.
Barbara Rose:
Then you don ' t know what inspired the "drip"
technique?
Lee Krasner:
For me it is working in the air and knowing where it will
land. It is really quite uncanny. Even the Indian sand painters were
working in the sand, not in the air.
Barbara Rose:
That implies that there must have been a whole period
of practicing the aerial gesture.
Lee Krasner:
There probably was on a smaller scale, but I wouldn't
know.
Barbara Rose:
There are small "drip" paintings of course.
In
descrip–
tions of Pollock, there is often reference to Pollock's "balletic"
movements.
Lee Krasner:
It
is all called dance in some form. He was a terri ble social
dancer. That's not a reflection of his rhythm.
Barbara Rose:
The physical grace of Pollock in Namuth's film is
simply breathtaking. Was he athletic?
Lee Krasner:
No. No sport that I ever encountered. His interests were
the antithesis of athletics. Except boxing. He liked to look at that
occasionally on television.
Barbara Rose:
You listened
to
jazz together.
Lee Krasner:
He had his own thing abou t jazz. He would sometimes
listen four or five consecutive days and nights to New Orleans jazz
until I would go crazy. The house would be rocking and rolling
with it.
Barbara Rose:
Any classical music?
Lee Krasner:
Not that I'm aware of. I like classical music, and if I had it
on, Pollock would certainly listen. And he had some poetry on
records that he wou ld listen to.
Barbara Rose:
Did Pollock paint by natural li ght or artificial light?
