Eine Kleinie Nachtmusik, K525 Romanze Andante (A Little Night Music)  5 panels 30inches plus by 10 feet 3 inches.

I learned a lot about the Los Angeles art world watching the movie The Cool School .  It was interesting enough that I purchase the book Catalog L.A. Birth of an Art Capital 1955-1985, which shows a few of Mike Kelly’s works, photographs of him, and a short conversation. When I read that the artist Mike Kelly had killed himself, I was taken back.  Here is an artist that accomplished so much, and  that can be an inspiration to us unknowns, and tragically he ended his journey.  I do not get it, and yet I do understand this: that the dream of becoming a known artist with sales and exhibitions, and then accomplishing that goal is, in reality, just a step forward in living the creative life and not the end in itself.  Life keeps going on so the acknowledge artist still needs that next goal to keep him and his art pushing forward.  Maybe, Mike Kelly just missed a step, tripped, and never recovered.  Who knows what really happened.  He was a lucky man up to that point.

So, here we are most of the way through this artwork, that was started on January 5th, and it looks like this work is going to go over a month.  That is surprising considering that it is not that large, but the past month has been filled with distractions.  There is still some major additions to be painted in, and a lot of smoothing out of the roughness. This work is looking to be a break through piece, and the anticipation of doing more, with more panels, is a driving force to push ahead to its completion.

Listening to Sade – Never as Good as the First Time.

Scott Von Holzen