BARBARA ROSE
75
They had to report every morning to Spivak's studio on Ninth
Street. Since Spivak would never let them near his mural, Krasner
and Rosenberg , both talkative, opinionated, and argumentative,
had plenty of time to discuss their favorite subjects , poetry and poli–
tics . They disagreed about nearly everything and maintained this
friendly animosity long after the Pollocks and the Rosenbergs found
themselves neighbors in Springs, East Hampton, Long Island. By
that time , of course, Rosenberg had become a famous art critic, the
champion of Willem de Kooning, whom he and Krasner both met
while working on the Project.
During the years she worked on the Project, gradually rising
from assistant to mural project supervisor, Krasner continued to
study. Always involved with self-improvement, she had studied life
drawing briefly with George Bridgman at the Art Students League
during the summer of 1934. She also studied with Job Goodman at
Greenwich House for a semester in 1935. Goodman was a Benton
student and a friend of Pollock's . In fact, he and Pollock collaborated
on several projects, including a mural for the Grover Cleveland High
School which was never executed and some experimental sculpture
made of clay and wax.
In the early thirties , when they might have met at Greenwich
House , Lee and Jackson had only odd hours for their art. Both were
having trouble making ends meet. Lee had a teaching degree , but
she could not stand the idea of an academic life and preferred to take
odd jobs that left her freer. Jackson had no degrees and at that point
almost no skills. Unable to find any kind of job, he went on federal
relief in 1934. In 1935, he worked as a stonecutter for the New York
State Emergency Relief Bureau . His job was to restore and clean
Saint-Gaudens's statue of Peter Cooper in Cooper Square . It was a
time when his thoughts were still focused on sculpture, and he might
well have preferred working as a sculptor. However, the technical
levels were higher for sculpture than for painting. Thus, when Pol–
lock applied for a W .P .A. job, the supervisor who decided to which
division an artist would be assigned put Jackson on the easel paint–
ing project - thereby making it virtually impossible for Pollock to
pursue his two genuine interests - sculpture and mural painting.
Pollock's brother, Sanford McCoy, on the other hand, was hired as a
mural painter, possibly because he had actually worked on murals in
Los Angeles with the Mexican muralist David Siqueiros. Like San–
ford , Lee was also assigned to mural painting. This was ironic , since
it was Jackson who aspired to public art, whereas Lee was still think-
