This artwork, You Raise Me Up main components are in place. It is rough because there is a lot of clean up and finishing still to do, but what you see is a good look at what the final work will be. I part of the music that I would like to mention, is the lyrics, and how I pick them from the music. This sentence from the music appears over an over again in this music:

“You raise me up, so I can stand on mountains;
You raise me up, to walk on stormy seas;
I am strong, when I am on your shoulders;
You raise me up… To more than I can be.”

What I try to do is first to find a part of the music that would be interesting for me to portray. Usually I look for a short phrase from the music that has a sharp beginning and an end.  I may find a couple of potential pieces of the music that might work. I then look at the length and the words that are in the music. The length is important, for lately  I have trying to keep these smaller works under six feet. If I can keep the size down I then look at the words from that part of the music, and what combination I can use that when read together no longer just represents the music. In other words I choose the words carefully so that they are not apart of any particular piece of music.  My chosen words in my artworks can be found in any common conversations.  In the case of this music I choose the words “I am strong I can be.” Sure they can be found in the music, but the way I have placed them in the artwork, their meaning can be from the music, or their meaning can mean many, many other things. As always, I make it a must to separate the music from the art.

Talking about words brings me to a correction, or better an addition to an earlier blog post where I mention three things that separate this art from others, let say. Those three things are the number of canvas and they ways they connect.  The second is the backgrounds on these canvases are in many ways different form each other to the point that if separated each canvas could stand on its own. The third point is the way I portray the music that goes across all the canvases, and how that brings everything together as one artwork.  I need to add the fourth item, the words.  How could I forget that.  My words not only can capture the emotional feel of the music, they also can go beyond the music by reaching out the viewer and pulling them close in.  When words appear in an artwork I pick them carefully, to present the broadest range of emotional impact, which I hope will enlarge their meaning way beyond even the music.

Scott Von Holzen