What you, the visitor, need to know:

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Going deeper:

Photo 1: The top left and bottom right 16×20 speaker box canvases, which I have written the graffiti lyrics, share the same green color used in the musical notes. Those two canvases and the two smaller 8×8 canvases will be mounted on top of the two central tall canvases. This will then also elevate the placement of the music, creating more depth and stronger shadows. The sheet metal plates laying on both the speaker boxes will be attached and bend in half circles like in previous works.

Photo 2: I chose the brown color, Van Dyke, for the music, thinking it went well with Sting’s look (broad term). I then compared several colors that I thought would go with that brown. The central two tall canvases are Maroon. My guess judging from the image was that I was trying to replicate a Mark Rothko background style like I used a dozen years ago. The results looked bad. I then made the Maroon blocks larger and added blocks of Van Dyke, thinking that the music color would pull everything together. It did not. It all looked worse.

The Van Dyke brown on the smaller wooden music pieces looked good. Blending it on the larger surfaces of the canvases made the glossy look of the color stand out from the matte Maroon. This shine would make the background a distraction to the music. I do not want that. The backgrounds I create are there to help the music stand out, add a little interest, and to support the music, enabling the artwork to hang on a wall without making a statement. I painted over the two central canvases, returning them to my style of broadly applying solid colors that lack depth and detail, but with a touch of added interest. Those canvases are now painted a solid gray blue color seen in the Photo Image one above.

Photo 3-1: I have been experimenting and using a scratch of paint technique for years. Although the results have always varied, only now did I have my first failure. The top layer on the right 16×20 canvas easily pealed away and slid about when I attempted to scratch it off.

Photo 3-2: In the image you see the same arrangements of the canvases in Photo 3-1. The right image I removed the top layer down to the base and repainted it. On the left image in 3-1 is the same in 3-2. This canvas was difficult to scrap off. For that reason, unlike the right canvas, I did not remove it. What I did was to treat that layer as the bottom layer.

What this means instead of applying the top layer and then hoping to scratch of the right amount of that layer exposing the background, I have now reversed that process by putting the final layer of paint as the base coat, an scratching off what once was the bottom layer, now move to the top. As you can see in the new images of these canvases, so far I have been reluctant to scratch of the additional top layer. That is why the look between the two images appears different.

There may also be one other benefit of reversing this scratch-off technique, in that the first and underlying layer of top paint to be scratched off will be titanium white. Once that has dried, then I can apply the colors I want the top scratch off to look like. By always using white as the first layer of the scratch off top I am hoping this may improve the consistency of the technique.

Photo 4: I have had an issue with my past 4″ speakers in that the higher sound levels were lacking. I have learned to fix some of that using my DAW software, Studio One. It was when looking for a better hardware solution I stumbled across a set of 4″ speakers that are two-way. The tweeter in the middle of the speaker may improve the music’s high end quality. They also came with a surprising benefit of covers. I can finally face the speakers towards the wall, eliminating the canvas obstruction.

With few exceptions over the years, my speakers have been mounted inside their boxes, on the backside of a framed canvas. I compensated for their needed depth by placing the speaker canvases on top of the background canvases that are hung on the wall (see Photo Image 1). These new two-way speakers that protrude outside their boxes, with protective covers, allow for the sliming down of the speaker boxes. The hope is they will also improve the overall sound quality.

Final thoughts?

I realized the mistakes in the recent wedding artwork that I am not a fine art painter in touch with detailed nuances. Why, with this project, did I repeat this struggle with my paint application, I do not know, but I have concluded that although the artist Mark Rothko was a major influence at the beginning of this art, he no longer is. I have move closer in style to the other Color Field painters like Frank Stella and Kenneth Noland.

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Roger’s poem

The sun in winter
is all too short.
Who knew as you move through our lives,
that yours would follow the winter sun.

Winter arrests time
for thought and reflection
that February afternoon.
Dressed for warmth
we venture out,
Into the soft light,
surrounded by stillness,
not an oak leaf stirring. 

The cold of that yesterday
 is heard in the crackling crunch
 of fresh fallen snow, 
 as I straddled previous steps
 along a well-worn path,
 deep into the woods.

Although I think
we are alone,
Zelda knows better,
her actions are telling. 
Life and the deer are about. 
Stopping with her tail up,
head sharply flipping, 
to-and-fro sensing something_, 
curious,
I also pause,
feeling a stirring in the air.
With her nose to the snow, 
Zelda looks to turn off the known path, 
to explore another trail, 
far less traveled. 
Her interest, I cannot foresee,
or know where it leads. 

Before I can call her back
to the safe way forward,
Winter freezes my momentum,
with a stinging breeze
across my cheeks,
breaking the silence,
awakening concerns.
Had I dressed warm enough?
I feel and pat
my coat,
all was there.
Then it came to me,
that it was not the cold,
but the wind, returning to me
moments once set
quietly away.
I wondered why on a
cold Winter’s Day
on this made-up path,
at this crossroad
in these common woods, 
this walk halted,
by an unforeseen breeze
sending a shiver
tumbling inside, 
then out into the light.
Why over all my many memories,
did I find this one exposed
from beneath Winter’s blanket_,
a consciousness,
an awareness,
that once_, 
was you? 

But time was fleeting.
I had let pass the diminishing forest light
and our late start,
fearing the coming darkness
will hide this path,
I call Zelda back
to the safe way home. 
For Home is where we want to be. 
What choice have I,
but to be on our way. 
We had to turn back,
for time does not. 
I could only turn away. 

sections 1-6 of fifteen.....to be continued.

Scott Von Holzen