This artwork’s color choices continue the trend of the previous artwork, Don’t Give Up. What I am trying to accomplish is to move away from the standard relationships of colors seen in a color chart. The two small end canvases are examples of this. Each of those canvases is a complementary color to the main connected canvases. But they are not complimentary to each other. With my past use of color, I may not have done it that way.

The left canvas is a light orange. I would have considered using orange’s complimentary color, which is a light violet for the far right canvas. Except then, its connected canvas would have to be painted yellow to remain complementary. So much yellow would have unbalanced the look of the artwork, and would not fit the music. I am a self-taught colorist, and therefore it has been a slow evolution. Right now my position is I want color to enhance the look of the flow of the music, provide a space for some lyrics, keep being in the background, and therefore emphasize the depth of the artwork.

Talking about many years, as mentioned in the video, I have been painting music for over seventeen years. That is a decent artist’s career. What is missing from my artist journey is an acknowledgment in the air that this art at least blows a light flutter through the leaves of the tree of art. The lyric from form the song Scientist by Coldplay puts this all into perspective.”… Nobody said it was easy.” Taking that into perspective, therefore, I am putting this artwork aside and moving on to my next project, Yellow, also by Coldplay.

The center of the artwork is where the speaker wire disconnects. This allows me to unbolt the canvases into two pieces for travel. The two center canvases show the free-standing metal plates to which the note magnets connect.

The design of the stereo system has the look of, it’s a wonder that it works. Obviously; it does. The twenty-watt amp is on the lower left. I store the cover music on the soundboard at the top. Over the years, I have built a lot of these same systems. I construct them with a lot of careful soldering and multiple checks along the way. In the end, I am relieved each time that they work. The appearance is secondary. Besides, how else could I arrange all those wires? A feature I now do mounts the stereo system on a removable board. Removing the two wing nuts and the connected wires allows the entire stereo to be serviced outside the artwork.

I thought I would include the end page of the worksheet for this artwork. The artwork visualizes the last three lyrical lines “We ain’t ever getting older.” I really dislike the word “ain’t.”

Scott Von Holzen