Most art writers prefer to glorify great artists by putting their art on an imaginary pedestal as if the artists were zapped down from heaven with an amazing gift that only they possess.  I'm here to tell you nobody posseses such artistic talent.  Great art isn't  made by Gods turned human.  It's made by humans with mental illness.  Trust me.

Jackson Pollock and Greg Furie have some amazing similarities in the way they discovered their respective invented art techniques. I'm referring to Jackson Pollock's drip paintings and Greg Furie's calligraphy drawings.

Jackson Pollock suffered from childhood emotional trauma from prolonged emotional abuse either from his mother and/or father.  Whether the abuse was passed down from previous generations is anyone's guess.

Greg Furie suffered severe emotional trauma in childhood from his mother and father.

Pollack and Furie both acquired manic depression and bipolar disorder as a result of childhood emotional trauma. (The list of mental disorders is long from childhood emotional trauma, and many disorders overlap).

Pollock and Furie discovered a method of creating art that satiated their OCD, a symptom of mental illness.  The method for Pollock was drip paintings.  The method for Furie, calligraphy drawings.

Both artists work are extremely intense, borerlining chaotic,.  Yet there is an interesting clarity in all the clutter, symbolic of the hardened patterns of fragmented thought caused by the childhood emotional trauma that hides in the suconscious and unconscious.

In a Los Angeles Times article, Pollock biography writer Steven Naifeh says of Pollock, "His art was the only way he could resolve his inadequacies as a human being."

That's a prime example of a writer deifying an artist.  I couldn't disagree more with Mr Naifeh.  Art never could resolve inadequacies in any artist.  Art is simply an outlet for an artist to symbolically  express emotional pain.  

Pollock never did resolve his emotional pain, and he died before he had the chance.

Furie is resolving his childhood emotional trauma through dreams.