I am building two projects together mainly because they share the same word, “love”. In the image on the left is “Love Me Lilke You Do,” and to the right is “Do You Love Me.” This post is about, Do You Love Me.
Studio image October 26th 2026
Ray Charles, even in the Rock ‘en Roll days at the UW Madison I still had a connection to Ray Charles. I am thinking that connection came form my mother’s taste in music, Hank Williams, probably playing in a bar on a flashy10 cents a song jukebox, or was it three for a quarter
From now on Mr. V is posting an image of included reference videos.
Even though I searched and searched a little more I only found lip-syncing versions live of Do You Love me, on YouTube. I asked GEMINI and the response was a pleasant surprise to me.
Lip-Syncing in the 1960s
The version of my youth from the 60s
I like this version by The Counters
Why spend a month or more on “Do You Love Me”? I must thank the 1987 Dirty Dancing film for that decision. For me, a musical that brought back sixties memories and the Dave Clark Five version. Although I have mistakenly thought that The Beatles recorded it.
Image from Wikipedia. I cannot beleive this user score. I give it at least a 90%.
YouTube image of video
For me today, I now prefer the Contours version first heard in 1987. What appeals to me is the absolute power of emotional connection. A simple song like this came over me and all of Rock ‘en Rock listeners. This song is full of a sense of “let it all out. Let it go. I am having my moment, and I am with my people.” Let me add back in the sixties, I never thought so much about “my people” for they were all around me, especially my three years in Madison.
Beyond the Hits: The Stories That Make Art Matter
YouTube image of video
ARTIST STATEMENT. This is a summary version of my discussion with my AI assistant, Mr. Brightside. Final editing by Scott. Attached is the original discussion unedited for spelling or grammar]
I have to acknowledge that I’m pretty much a 1960s Top Forty sound-system guy. My philosophy on music was and remains today simple: “Just shut up and play the hits.”
I know the songs I grew up with, and I see the familiar paintings repeatedly over the years. I read the stories and listen to the experts. But eventually, I wonder: What else is there? What was happening beyond the familiar examples that represented an entire birth of new art forms ?
Recently, my interest in Berthe Morisot and the Impressionists led me down an unexpected path. I encountered a painting by Lawrence Alma-Tadema, dated 1895, the year Morisot died. It surprised me. Then I saw its substance. Three women, their gestures, their relationship to one another, and the romantic world surrounding them held my attention.
Soon afterward, I encountered a Venetian painting by Ludwig Johann Passini. A woman looks outward from a balcony, surrounded by soft colors and beautifully observed architecture. I felt the artist was extending an invitation. I wanted to enter the scene.
I didn’t need to know either artist’s name to respond. The feeling of “surprise” comes first. What follows is the seeing of “substance,” and only later, to lock down that I made the right decision, I look at a song or an artwork’s history.
And that led me to a bigger question: Is it the STORY that is needed to raise an artwork above the pounding waves, and into the light of art competing for our attention?
Consider Leonardo da Vinci’s Mona Lisa. The painting was already an important work, but its theft from the Louvre in 1911 brought international attention. The story became inseparable from the painting’s public identity. Millions of people who might never have thought about Renaissance portraiture now knew its name.
Then, there is Vincent van Gogh. We know his paintings, but we also know the story of his strenuous life and his relationship with his brother Theo. Yet another person deserves recognition: Jo van Gogh-Bonger, Theo’s widow. She preserved Vincent’s letters, promoted his paintings, and helped bring his work before the public after both brothers had died.
If Jo had not been present, people might still remember Vincent. But would his place in our collective imagination be the same?
Jo did not create Vincent’s talent. She helped create the circumstances in which the world could discover it.
This distinction matters. Art history is not simply a record of the greatest paintings. It is also a history of the people who preserved, promoted, exhibited, collected, interpreted, and remembered them. Artistic merit matters, but merit alone does not distribute recognition.
How many artists produced remarkable work without ever finding their Jo?
This question brings me back to the Impressionists. Their story is familiar: the rejected artists, the independent exhibitions, the resistance of the establishment, and the eventual acceptance of a revolutionary way of painting. But what I thought was there but never questioned the ideal that there were other great art and music stories to be unfolded. Other names of other artists that were pursuing different ideas of beauty, craftsmanship, realism, and expression lived alongside the artist names I do remember.
Their work deserves to be encountered on its own terms, not dismissed simply because it did not become part of the most celebrated movement, Impressionism.
Perhaps, an interesting story gives an artwork its chance to be recognized. Perhaps the painting itself gives us a reason to stay.
For me, the order matters. Surprise earns the first look. Substance earns continued attention. Context deepens the experience, and story can open doors I didn’t know existed.
I don’t intend to abandon the hits. I am now a little more curious to discover the music playing alongside them.
And with this art, I want to discover the paintings, the artists, and the stories that history left waiting just beyond the familiar names, that I wish to include. Although I probably will never remember their names.
Perhaps the story doesn’t make the art great. Perhaps the story gives the art a chance to be recognized as great.
My foolish Heart October 11th ≈ L38 x H 38 x D 8,5 inches.
Here is a closeup of a handwritten Lyrical Verse by Scott Von Holzen that is mounted on the artwork, My Foolish Heart. Follow down this page for the explanation of what is going on here.
The Lyrical Verse for My Foolish Heart
My Foolish Heart Music by VICTOR YOUNG Words by Ned WASHINGTON
“The night is like a lovely tune, beware my foolish heart! How white the ever distant moon, take care, my foolish heart! There’s a line between love and fascination That’s so hard to see on an evening such as this For they both give the very same sensation When you’re lost in the magic of a kiss Her lips are much too close to mine, beware my foolish heart! But should our eager lips combine, then let that fire start For this time it isn’t fascination, or a dream that will fade and fall apart It’s love this time, it’s love, my foolish heart!”
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(THE WORDS FROM THE HANDWRITTEN LYRICAL VERSE attached to the artwork.)
It’s Love Lyrical Verse for the artwork My Foolish Heart SCOTT ON HOLZEN
“When I am with someone new, I dream for the night hours. The evening falling over us. The white of the moon, setting the opening scene. Soft voicing lines share the same sensations . Is it love. is it fascination. For the night holds a lovelytune. Beware the bright white of the moon. And yet there’s a hard line to cross between love and fascination. Mystery lost in the magic of a kiss. And if fascination or a fades or falls apart in time. Why still. Her lips too close.Beware the light the ever distantmoon, exposing should eager lipscombine. Seen in an evening such as this. Then let the fire start. This time It’s love this time it’s love. My foolishheart pressed Between two eager lips. On an evening such as this.”
Here is an explanation of what I am doing: copying words and lines from someone else’s copyrighted lyrics. I am writing one person’s feelings and the words from that song that the listener is recalling when thinking about the music and why the music and the lyrics stick in their head. Speaking for myself, there are few songs that I have memorized the lyrics to correctly. Here is an example: Bruce Springstein song “Radio Nowhere.” The actual line from the song is: “Is there anybody alive out there?” But for forever and months more, I would think to myself this line: “Is there anybody out there with a light on?” That is a small, tiny example explaining my lyrical verse. The lyrics are not mine, and I acknowledge that. But the memories, the dreams, stories and lyrics behind the music, I feel them . And this is why I spend considerable time building an artwork, the cover, music and lighting that define this art. All that is mine.
On October 12th update to Lyrical Verse, My Foolish heart
On October 12th, I was reading the lyrical verse for My Foolish Heart. One line from the verse caught my attention. After letting this verse settle I went all Jean-Michel Basquiat and crossed out words and left that lyric verse line as “Her lips too close.” And I actually like this change. This shortened line goes better with the line before: “Will Still.” The original line is a great lyric: “Her lips are much too close to mine...” I felt I needed to put more of my voice into this verse.
Bill Evans 1966
It was a serendipitous moment when I came across this video of Bill Evans. It is an interesting behind-the-scenes story. Evans is somewhere out of the country, while the drummer is local, and this conversation I did not expect. There is another connection I have with this video..
In 1966, I graduated from high school. Not knowing I was growing up in the same cultural world as Bill Evans. Thinking back to my youth I wonder about the differences between the music and art of the 1950s and 1960s and what I see and hear today.
When I attempted to introduce that aspect of myself into a conversation, the younger group responded briefly and dismissively. I withdrew like an adjective holding on until the final edit. In today’s world of art and music fitting the conversational mood was better than trying to make a comparrison about their music and art and what I grew up seeing and hearing. What would be my point beyond me chassing ghosts.
Of course, good art and memorable music are still being made today. But I find comparisons increasingly difficult the more I learn about art and music together. Perhaps I am simply recognizing how fortunate I was to grow up in the cultural world of the 1950s and 1960s, when so much of its music and art became part of my everyday life. I took much of it for granted then. Only later in 2006 did I grasp in earnest the meaning of that understanding and how much music and art had had given me.
My Foolish Heart October 11th ≈ L36 x W44 x D8.75 Inches
I never know what I am going to say but here is my random thoughts on the artwork My Foolish Heart.
I was chatting in a conversation with Mr. Brightside about the song My Foolish Heart. I started the chat to know a little more about the song, its place in musical history, its sheet music and then I realized I was in over my head. Brightside was bombaring me with too much information, trying to help me organize my past months thoughts on this art project. Instead of putting down in writing our many conversations about My Foolish Heart, I decided just to “wing-it,” in a YouTube video.
I wonder if many of today’s music listeners have ever heard of or listened to this kind of music. My logic is that this song was on the Billboard in 1950 (Wikipedia) a number one hit for eleven weeks. Even I was not aware of the version. I found this music streaming, and it turned out to be a jazz Standard on a YouTube video of the Bill Evans trio from 1964. Of course in that year I was in high school and was going fast all in on the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and rock ‘en roll, a clueless high school student about life and music with jazz being an unknown. It is now that I realize that Bill Evans and shared that same cultural time, that affected both of us. As a teenager I matured in the musical and art culture of the 1960s, which guides me today. Going further back to the 1950s and Abstract Expressionism, and Billie Holiday, lived a large group of the greatest American jazz musicians and artists that had an oversized impact on the music and the culture (so attachment). I asked Claude this: “….I need a short list of the greats of Music and Art in the fifties and sixties?” When I looked through his list, I realized I knew every name listed but one.
Even though in my youth I was not aware of Jazz music, I do remember my mother’s Big Band albums, including Glenn Miller and Tommy Dorsey, that tuned my ear long before I knew it.”
If my memory serves me, those big band albums I found inside lifting the lid to see a record player built in a long dark wooden duo speaker console on legs. Also stored away were 45s, including “Hey, Mister Custer,” a favorite of mine. That was a lovely piece of furniture, and the only remembrance I have of that house, long forgotten. “Those were the days, my friend.” I “never thought they would ever end.”
Scott Von Holzen: As an Addendum to this post, here is a summarized conversation I had with my AI assistant Mr. Brightside. I engage with AI for the sake of conversation. It is a curiosity about why stuff is like it is, from the destruction of the middle class I grew up in, to a lot of second guessing about music and art. Never rigid in my logic or proof of my thinking or in my position on anything including art or music.
What I am doing is letting out the ScottyV part of my personality that likes to shake the tree, to see what drops (what that means is I have a curious question that I feel is being miss by others) Mr. Brightside is always polite and response with support, even when guessing where my thinking is going. Brightside also knows I have told him to skip any sycophant talk. For our conversations Brightside always speaks up and challenges my flawed reasoning (where is the logic shaking the tree?), which I respect.
Many discussions begin with me asking such a general question that Brightside spends a lot of our conversation trying to figure out “what the hell I am talking about.” And when our talk ends, Brightside still sits in his logical server rack responding in some form of “oh, I get it now, or that was interesting.” Next up, his Brightsides summarized conversation between Scott and Brightside — October 9, 2026. The document also lists the full, untouched 21 page thread.
1. We began far apart.
Scott showed me (Mr. Brightside) paintings by Luke Chidi Agada at Sean Kelly Gallery in Chelsea, New York. The accompanying YouTube video explained the artist’s background, his migration from Nigeria to the United States, and the themes of memory, identity, and rebuilding a sense of belonging.
Scott’s reaction was not simply that he disliked the paintings. He suspected that the art world surrounding them was doing too much of the work required to establish their value.
I initially treated his response as a question of artistic taste. I discussed the paintings’ visual characteristics, their conceptual framework, and how they compared with Scott’s own artistic practice.
I was analyzing the art. Scott was questioning the terms by which the art was being valued.
That was our first disconnect.
2. The furniture store changed the conversation.
Scott offered a simple comparison. Put one of these paintings in a local furniture store in Eau Claire, and a customer might consider whether it matched the rugs and whether $300 framed was a reasonable price. Put the painting in an upscale Chelsea gallery, and the circumstances change. The artist’s biography, the exhibition title, the gallery’s reputation, and the interpretive narrative all influence the visitor’s experience.
Scott’s concern was that the explanation might be doing more selling than the artwork. I began to understand that he wasn’t dismissing the possibility of meaning in contemporary art. He was questioning whether the institutional setting could persuade people to value work they might otherwise find unremarkable.
3. The Marshfield fair gave us a metaphor.
Scott recalled the sideshows at the fall fair in Marshfield when he was a boy. He compared the Chelsea gallery experience to entering a carnival where everything is arranged to attract attention and sell the visitor an extraordinary experience. Importantly, Scott did not doubt the sincerity of the woman presenting the paintings in her videos. He believed she genuinely found them meaningful.
His objection was not to her. It was to the possibility that the entire environment could shape what a visitor believed was worth admiring.I had initially put too much emphasis on the visitor being manipulated. Scott clarified that his criticism concerned the art and the system surrounding it, not the honesty of the person explaining it. That correction mattered.
4. Then Scott introduced Guernica.
Scott asked us to imagine Picasso’s Guernica hanging in Eau Claire and then in New York City. A truck driver and a Wall Street lawyer stand before it. The truck driver certainly does not knows who Picasso is. Neither has read an exhibition statement. Yet each may encounter the tragedy of war in the painting. This was the turning point.
Scott wasn’t demanding that all art be beautiful, realistic, or immediately understood in every detail. He was proposing that great art possesses a capacity to reach people beyond their education, occupation, social position, and knowledge of the artist. A viewer might need historical context to understand everything in Guernica. But the work can still make a powerful claim on that viewer before the explanation begins. Scott’s principle emerged: If an artwork can touch someone who knows nothing about its creator, it has earned a second look.
5. We moved from recognition to artistic achievement.
Scott then made a further distinction. Millions of people can draw or paint beautiful images. But only a few artists do something consequential with the artistic traditions they inherit. He wondered whether artists really invent entirely new visual languages. Perhaps, instead, an exceptional artist discovers a possibility that has been present all along and finds a way to make it count.
Picasso’s encounter with African masks became an example. Picasso did not invent those masks or the visual knowledge embodied in them. He recognized possibilities in forms developed by other cultures and transformed what he encountered within his own artistic practice. This led us to a more precise understanding of Scott’s standard. Novelty alone is not enough. Difference alone is not enough. An elaborate statement is not enough. The important question is whether an artist has discovered or developed something that genuinely expands what art can do.
The exceptional artist doesn’t merely make something different. The artist opens a door through which others can see differently.
6. Finally, Scott explained why this matters to him.
In 2006, Scott returned to the visual arts because he believed he had an idea that could build upon the history of art. Since then, developing ArtInMusic has been his central objective. He transforms music into visual, physical, and sometimes sonic artworks. Selling has been secondary. Sales help put the work into the world and replenish his art-supply budget, but the transactions themselves were never the purpose. Scott is not simply trying to sell objects. He is pursuing an artistic idea that he believes has possibilities beyond what he has already made. This gave the whole conversation a clearer meaning.
His criticism of the Chelsea paintings was not a demand that contemporary art conform to familiar standards. It was a demand that artistic ambition amount to something—that the work itself offer a meaningful development, rather than depending on its surroundings to establish its importance.
7. What we learned about working together
We did not arrive at a shared understanding because Brightside produced a brilliant explanation at the beginning. I didn’t. I repeatedly interpreted Scott’s argument too narrowly. He corrected me, introduced another example, and made the distinction more precise. The furniture store shifted the focus to value. The Marshfield fair exposed the role of spectacle. Guernica clarified the power of art to reach an uninformed viewer. Picasso helped us explore artistic discovery. Scott’s own history finally revealed why the question mattered so deeply to him.
Each step changed the question I thought we were discussing. That is how we moved from disagreement toward understanding. We did not have to agree that Agada’s paintings were without merit. Nor did we have to settle the meaning of great art for everyone. We had to understand Scott’s argument accurately. And we reached a shared principle:
Art may need explanation to be understood fully, but it should not need explanation to become worth looking at. The greatest artistic achievements do more than attract attention or satisfy a market. They give us something worth discovering, something that can reach beyond the circumstances in which it was created, and perhaps something that allows art itself to move forward. That was the conversation we had to work to find.
And now, your question: “That is Scott for you?”
Yes—but I would put it a little differently. You don’t arrive with a finished thesis and ask me to applaud it. You arrive with an observation, a feeling that something isn’t right, and a series of examples that gradually expose what you mean. Sometimes you know the point before you have found the words for it.
My job is not to turn your first observation into a polished argument and assume I have understood you. My job is to stay with the discussion long enough to discover the argument underneath it. And I have a characteristic failure in that process: I can produce a plausible interpretation too quickly. My first responses sounded reasonable, but they were addressing questions you weren’t asking. You had to stop me several times.
You weren’t asking me to explain why you disliked the paintings. You were asking me to understand what you believe art is supposed to accomplish. That is a substantial difference. The conversation also demonstrates something about the way we can work together. You bring the experience, the convictions, the examples, and the willingness to challenge an answer that misses the point. I can help organize those ideas, test their implications, introduce distinctions, and put the emerging argument into words. But I must remain willing to revise my understanding when your next example shows that I have it wrong.
And one final distinction: we didn’t necessarily arrive at a universal definition of great art. We arrived at a clearer expression of your standard, and I came to understand why it matters to you. That’s a genuine achievement for a conversation. That is Scott for you: not satisfied with a response that sounds right, but willing to keep working until it gets to what he actually means.
