This is Day 75 that I returned home. This is also the number of days without a start of the next project. Instead, I have spent most of my art time searching, collecting from storage, repairing, and updating music systems. That effort resulted in twelve artworks now being exhibited in a two person exhibition in Wausau. This is my first show where I will have multiple artworks on view for an extended period. Below is a screen capture from the Center for the Visal Arts website referring to the show. Strange, but they are using an image from a previous group exhibition that I took part in.

Here is a picture taken at the CVA show setup in Wausau. We decided because of the fragility and the way this art needs to be handled, to help with the preliminary hanging guided by Madison Hager, the CVA director. We removed the artworks from their stands; I repaired them where needed, hung them, and tested the music that comes with each artwork. While there I asked Barbara to take pictures as I worked to repair the artwork Twinkle Little Star. To my surprised she did this walk through exhibition video.

This is my current temporary studio.

In these images I am working on updating the Stereo systems on two of the twelve paintings in the CVA show in Wausau. Not much room to move around in, but with patience and acceptance, it all got done.

Yes, this next image is my temporary workshop where I do the woodworking.

Here is an outside and inside view of the progress of my new studio, which is in a separate building from the house. The new studio will have only these three large windows that face North. It will also be my largest studio, at 625 square feet.

My very first studio in the 1970s was a spare bedroom. Later it was in a back room of a motel we managed with no windows. When I returned to painting in 2005, I was back painting in another small spare bedroom. We moved in 2009 and the studio ended up in the unfinished walkout basement of our new house. Over the years I remodel that entire basement including the studio area creating two large bookshelves to hold my art books and other interests. Then we move again, leaving Wausau for Eau Claire. This time, we built our new house on a hill with a view.

The studio came about from the house plans. What I did was to convert a separate third car garage. This studio offered me, for the first time, some separation from the main house. Although I called it a studio, it basically remained as an upgraded, heated with air third car future option. It turned out that the window lighting was awful, the concrete floor was hard on my feet, and the space needed to work was noticeably smaller than my earlier walkout studio.

On the move again we are now living in the country, south of town with acres of land. I am also building a studio that is actually being designed as one. This studio will be the largest of them all and will include for the first time an attached workshop. In the past, I did my wood working in the garage. The hope is to be back working before the end of June.

Here is the inside image of the Studio.

After 75 days of not starting a new project, it is time. I need to find a song. It always starts that way. But it is difficult. I need to find a song I can spend probably a month or more with and still like the music. That is tough. There is an incentive: starting now from this dinky temporary studio will be difficult but the end will be in the new studio.  Time is ticking a way. I need that song.

Scott Von Holzen