I met [
Jackson Pollock] one time when I accompanied a friend who was invited with other critics to go see some new paintings in his famous Long Island barn. Evidently Pollock was dead drunk, immobile and silent in a corner. After a moment, while looking at the traces of paint with which Pollock covered the canvas that was stretched across the floor, one of the critics risked a few words, talking about 'chance operation.' Pollock, awaking slowly from his drunken stupor, repeats the words, 'Chance operation?'. He then takes a paintbrush, dips it into a pot of paint and, with one movement of his arm, flings the paint across the length of the room, squarely hitting the doorknob!