Author: Scott Von Holzen

I am currently renewing an artistic adventure that first started in 1974, and ended in the early 1980's. A casual comment restarted the quest in art in 2004. Now, at night I am surrounded by artworks done and in progress, shelves full of art books, my music collection playing through a classic NAD amp and a pair of solid, classic free standing speakers, my piano, violin, blues guitar, and saxophone. So all is musical no matter what I am up to in the studio. Since I was a kid I have had the urge to be creative Now, in my later sixties, I am determine to know. I want to follow this to the end to see what these paintings, and all this music amounts to. This is probably the last great adventure I will have, so I am all in. So, watch out for nonstop music, canvases with multiple panels, with paint spread thick or dribbled on, words with meaning, and results that will challenge, push the meaning of music, and may even splash back. This blog's real purpose is to document my story in the making, and you are welcomed to follow along. Thank you for your support. Scotty Von Holzen

S_V_H Purple Rain image2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

purpleRain_2This is a short update.  This second image of Purple Rain, for now,  shows the background finished.  I call this artwork  Purple Rain, but so far violet has been the dominate color.  The plan is to save the many shades of purple for the music, and other add-nos. In this second image I  have striped out some of the violet with colors I found in Prince’s clothing in a small number of his video interviews, appearances, and performances.

While looking for a mix of colors that make up Prince’s image I saw,  and learned more than I usually do, about the artist and his music. This was intimidating, for Prince certainly is a well-respected song writer and musician.  In comparison I am just a guy painting music artworks, only starting to build a career.  That kind of thinking I had to put aside for it was too restrictive.  This painting is not a tribute to Prince.  Obviously Prince is a fabulous  artist, but if I am to succeed at being a painter of musical artworks,  Purple Rain, as an artwork, has to stand alone, as my cover of a great pop rock song.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Purple Rain image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

purpleRain_1This is the artwork Purple Rain based on a single larger canvas instead of my recent trend of using small combinations of canvases.   After my first years of only using single canvases I began to combine them  to paint larger artworks. These larger size paintings peaked with the Vivaldi Four Season series where I joined single large canvasses together to produce works twelve feet, and more,  in length, by three feet in height.  The largest, and last of this series, Summer Presto, stretched 20 feet. After finishing the Vivaldi paintings I decided I needed a break from big.

The change to producing smaller artworks, came about out of exhaustion, and the practical consideration that smaller paintings are easier to hang for more buyers which could help to increase this art’s market.  They are also less expensive to make, cheaper to ship, and take a lot less time to complete.  Since March of last year the size of my artworks have ranged from around three feet to five feet in length. The results of these small works, so far, have been disappointing, with little interest generated all through 2015 to the present.

When I began to put together my ideas for Purple Rain I looked into my storeroom,  and all I saw where stacks of large unused canvases. This got me wondering how I was going to use them up. With that thought on my mind I decided to reject the idea of using a number of small canvases for this artwork.  My new direction for Purple Rain, that you see in this first image, is to go bigger and simpler, with the choice of only one two foot by four-foot canvas.

That brings me to this general feeling that my backgrounds have become too predictable. With a new thought in mind for Purple Rain,  I decided to mark the music on the canvas before applying the first layer of paint.  This then allowed me to place the stripping so that it moves along with the music. For the background colors besides shades of purple,  I checked out Prince’s fashion look in his music videos, and  images. You can see in this first image of Purple Rain where I used colors from Prince’s performance at the 2007 Super Bowl:

Awful official NFL video.

 

I am painting this music because of a request by a possible buyer,  and because I am a fan of Prince’s original Funky sound.   Purple Rain stands out as an outstanding pop rock song, and a choice that might appeal to many Prince fans, as it certainly does for me.

Here is an early, and a rare live version of Prince singing Purple Rain.

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H Mon coeur s’ouvre à ta voix Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

monCoeursouvre_FinalI have completed this my first Aria. Unusual,  but true, I cannot pronounce the title of this artwork in French.   Softly Awakes My Heart is this music’s English name, but I prefer the original title that comes from the French Opera,  Samson and Delilah. One of my goals for this  painting was to let the music move off the canvas. As you can see above that is what I did accomplish, after solving a number of technical issues. The wire I finally ended up using, annealed aluminum,  is actually used for training of Bonsai trees.  It is a lot easier,  and lighter than copper, with the advantage of being thicker, but easier to mold into place. Of course even this fairly large wire is not enough to create a strong visual effect. That is why I grab a bunch of scrap pieces of wood, and had some fun. If you go back to late 2012 and this  Vivaldi painting from the Four Seasons Series, Autumn Allegro,  you can see the origin of that idea using  paint only.

4SeasonsAutumnAllegroFinalSimilar  what you see in the Vivaldi artwork, and in this French Aria painting,  those assortment of shapes around the flow are there to create the look of pieces of the music being toss about.  When sounded a note’s tone often continues, although diminished, until drowned out by the next note.  In these two artworks I express those reduced  pitches in the form of panted pieces, and scraps of wood, with the side effect of adding interest,  movement, and in this artwork, adding mass around the wire.

This artwork has an odd shape, and construction, but I think the look turns out to be fine because the painting looks balance. Again, as I mentioned before, the background is good, but it is not the fresh look I am looking for. This is a beautiful Aria, and I believe this artwork stands out as a great visual representation that honors the music.

 

 

Scott Von Holzen