The idea for the style of this artwork comes from Jackson Pollock’s painting Blue Poles. His painting is about 6 feet in height and about 16 feet in length. By using the look of Pollock’s blue poles I have finally broken the from-the-beginning tradition of always having perfect vertical shafts for my music.

 

There are eight blue poles in the Jackson work, but So What has eighteen notes.  To make the number differences work I made my first and last notes vertical.  I then used two notes to match the angle of each blue pole.  I did stay consistent with the back-en-forth motion of his poles, even through their rhythmic look I thought I could improve on.

The effect of not keeping everything vertical was to enhance the sense of motion across the canvas.  That technique may have possibilities beyond motion attempts that I have used in the past.  I knew this painting years ago.  I should have tried Pollock’s idea then, although today’s timing could be better. Lately, I have found ways to loosen up many of my self-inflicted restrictions, that I hung to from the past. Finally, I even did some experimenting, once again,  with splattering paint.  I found out, once again,  that for now, that technique does not work. Baby steps.

 

Scott Von Holzen