This is the first image of Your Song, my next music box, featuring the music of Elton John Your Song. Like all of my first images, this one will disappear under a top coat of paint. Only then will it be reviewed when I scratch off parts of that top layer of paint. As I have said, this bottom layer I can paint anything a prodigy would paint. I choose to go with narrow and vertical colors because my scratching is strongly horizontal. This creates a pleasant flow of colors across the canvas.

With this project I am gong anti Robert Frost and diverging down a road most traveled. I have a large amount of stretched canvases that have been stacked away for years. Lately my music boxes have used loose canvas attached to an aluminum frame, and connected to stretched canvas speaker boxes. This work uses all stretched canvases, with two 24 inch by 30 inch, and two 8 inch by 24 inch canvases. I may separate the two 30 inch center canvases with angled aluminum once I calculate the length of the music to be attached.

I have a large stack of stretched canvases. I also was tired of handling loose canvas, which requires a frame to attach to with magnets. When finished assembling my loose canvas artworks, they resembled my stretched canvases works, without the stretching part. The loose canvas style advantage is I can create custom sizes. With bought stretched canvas I have many size choices, but not all sizes are available. Because I do not have the time to build custom frames and then stretch canvases, I ended up purchasing many stretched canvases sizes as a workaround. That ended up, regrettably, with me storing an extensive collection of canvas that can sit for years, and taking even more years to use up.

Back in my college days, I bought albums, with little monies to spare, at the local record shop on State Street. While in college, I probably first heard of Elton John listening to Your Song on the radio. I did not think that much of him to buy the album.

The record albums that I bought (in no particular order) that come to mind around the late sixties and early 1970s of my college years, are the great album Déjà vu – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 1970 release, Mad Dogs & Englishmen – Joe Cocker 1970, The Who – Live at Leeds 1970, and probably Tommy 1969 release, Cream Wheels of Fire 1968 release, also in my first year 1968 in the dorm when I heard Laura Nyro’s album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. My top favorite record in the dorm was Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears 1968, Switched-on Bach 1968 release, The Beatles – White Album November 1968, Woodstock 1970, Sweet Baby James – James Taylor release 1970, Pearl – Janis Joplin 1971 release date that was the last album I bought before college graduation, and my motorcycle trip out west. I also bought a great album Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel 1970 release, that was given to me just before graduation, just out of college Barbra Joan Streisand – Barbra Streisand 1971, and finally Tumbleweed Connection – Elton John 1970 release date while still in college.

I finally bought into Elton John with his record album Tumbleweed Connection because it appealed to what I will call my version of country classic rock, placing it right up there, with Déjà vu. Great songs from beginning to end. This was followed by my favorite from beginning to end Elton John’s album, Madman Across the Water.

All those albums and more that I have forgotten connect all together to me musically. That is why I still play Elton John’s music on Spotify, and probably why Your Song was an easy pick to paint, especially after watching Lady Gaga’s revival at the 2018 Grammies.

Scott Von Holzen