With all the talk lately about faux Pollocks, I’m acquiring one that I can wear!
Call me tacky, but when I an e-mail hit my inbox today from the Pollock-Krasner House, trumpeting a “special limited edition [!?!] of Crocs’ signature clog, printed with details of the spattered colors on Pollock’s studio floor,” I ordered a pair. After all, my $39.99 (plus shipping) helps support a worthy cause, since the Stony Brook University-operated former home of the Abstract Expressionist couple gets royalties from the sales.
If, like me, you once got a thrlll from donning special booties and then walking across the paint-splattered floor in Pollock’s studio (situated close by his and Krasner’s 1879 farmhouse in The Springs, near East Hampton), these shoes have special resonance.
Barn containing Jackson Pollock’s (and, after his death, Lee Krasner’s) studio
Photo by Lee Rosenbaum
The Pollock Crocs even look a little like the artist’s own shoes, as pictured in this photo on the historic home’s website. [CORRECTION: These are actually Krasner’s shoes, not Pollock’s, as the Pollock-Krasner House’s director, Helen Harrison, has now informed me.]:
And they’re so much cheaper and more comfortable than that polka-dotted Vuitton/Kusama footwear:
In case you were wondering, I was not asked to praise the Pollock Crocs, nor am I receiving any compensation for doing so (nor have I actually received, let alone worn them yet). The only other apparel I’ve previously hyped on CultureGrrl (scroll to bottom) was also Pollock-related and had charitable intent:
As you’ve doubtless heard by now, the University of Iowa’s famous Pollock “Mural” (pictured in the lifeboat, above, and on a teeshirt that was sold by the university) is being conserved by the Getty Conservation Institute and conservators at the J. Paul Getty Museum, where it will also be placed on display, out of reach for two years from Iowa politicos who occasionally make noises about monetizing it.
The painting’s well attended temporary display at the Des Moines Art Center ended last Sunday.
What you may not have yet heard is that the Federal Emergency Management Agency, which repeatedly rebuffed requests for funds to help the university replace its flood-ravaged museum, has recently done so yet again.
Sean O’Harrow, director of the University of Iowa Museum of Art, told me this last month:
FEMA rejected our most recent appeal. The university is now considering its options, one of which is pursuing the process in Federal court. As this is potentially worth many tens of millions of dollars, the university feels it is important to pursue all such options.
In the meantime, the museum is working on developing a new museum model for the 21st century, and this is work that must be done before any new museum building can be designed.