Category: 2024

S_V_H Fast Car final image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Fast Car ≈L48.5″xH33.25″xD6.25″

I decided to, once again, create small works, but this time as a series. My plan was to use up my large supply of 15×30 inch canvases. I then had an unusual idea to hang them, with coated hanging wire, from another smaller rectangle canvas that then mounted the artwork to the wall. Although a little awkward to carry and hang, I completed my first new look mini artwork. The next three projects each improved on the previous mini, showing improvements in style and physical structure. I believe with Fast Car I now have a template that will allow me to produce future mini artworks within a two-week time span.

I needed, and now have completed the four mini artworks that will be a part of a plan to show this art outside the area. Of the minis, the first work, A Day in the Life, I lengthen to 44 inches to look more similar with the other three. These four works plus two others I will use to submit to individual showings.

I would mention that in the past, all my small artwork attempts found no more interest than my larger works. What differs with today’s new mini works is my reasoning. In the past I thought smaller artworks would sell easier. They did not. Today’s mini is not about pricing but about conserving my limited storage capacity and allowing me to submit to individual show proposals. After my awful trip to a duo art show in Wausau, Wisconsin, using a U-Haul truck, I decide never again.

My travel thinking is to pack up our Jeep Grand Cherokee with four minor works stacked on top of two major works. The two exemplar examples of this art I have chosen are Metamorphosis 2 (2022), music by Philip Glass, length 10 feet, and Closer (2023) at 9 feet, music by Coldplay. These artworks can be disassemble for transportation. That does not sound like enough works, but these artworks art different. That is because they play music.

A Day In the Life
Cheap Thrills
Dance Monkey
Fast Car

The total together play time of these six artworks would take a visitor 6 minutes to listen to. Considering that most art view time is less than 30 seconds, that six minutes of music would equal, at less, twelve artworks on display. These six music boxes have a combine length of 35 feet with no spacing. Because they each play music, it would be smart for the viewer ears that each artwork would be six feet or more apart. Therefore, this group, when hung in a gallery, could use up 70 feet plus of display walls.

I have decided not to post any Reals (videos) on Instagram. This art is more (much more) than 1 minute snippets. From now on, I may post information or an image, for whatever stupid reason. I am no longer in the mood to entertain strangers that have not the slightest understanding of what this art is and what this art is trying to accomplish. I will continue to post videos, as I have always done, on YouTube.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Dance Monkey final

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Dance Monkey ≈L51″xH33″xD6″ The artworks musical notation follows the words: “And when you’re done, I’ll make you do it all again.”

Dance Monkey project took over three week to complete. Creating an advanced draft, and then a finish version of the artworks cover music took three days. The rest of that time, was spend solving a number of issues related to the design and the performance of these mini works, plus updating the stereo system on Cheap Thrills. I also put together a new LEDs lighting system for these mini works and an alternative amplifier option. Time was also used up fixing a number of construction bugs for this series of artworks. My goal for time spent to complete these small artworks is two weeks.

Before photography, talented painters where payed to produce ever growing realistic two-dimensional images of a three-dimensional world. Throughout the history of western art from the thirteen century into the twentieth century that is how they made a living. Then there was a change with the invention of photography and the portable camera that made realistic images easier and cheaper to produce. Painting, then had the opportunity to diversify its purpose. Notable artists like Wassily Kandinsky contributed to the creation of abstract art. But, for me, I would look to Pablo Picasso’s 1907 artwork, Les Demoiselles d’Avignon, as the first important painting of the twentieth century. In 2015, I saw this artwork in person at MOMA in New York city. I remember nothing about that moment, but luckily my good friend Tom Haley took the image below. I have read that Les Demoiselles d’Avignon had few admirers, including Picasso’s fellow artists. Les Demoiselles d’Avignon did not sell until 1924. MOMA purchased the artwork for a modest $18,000 sum by selling a Degas painting and donations in 1939.

I feel a connection between Les Demoiselles d’Avignon and my art. I see Les Demoiselles d’Avignon as a major artwork that was not made to be a quick turnaround sale by Picasso. I think Picasso created Les Demoiselles d’Avignon to make a statement and to change the course of art history. He certainly did all that and more. This art from day one was also never about sales. Instead, its end goal still is a more humbled realistic butterfly effect on future art. This quote by Richard Serra represents my sentiment: “Good artists impress the viewing public, while great artists impress their fellow artists.” Right now, my only connection to other artists is our art group. And their art, as I now expect and am perfectly fine with, is focused on impressing the viewing public. That is where the sales are. My take is: where their art stops mine begins.

On the drive over to a wedding with my wife I was playing softly my favorite music on Spotify. It was like listening to Muzak. I felt nothing coming from the music. I think music needs to be felt to be heard. At the wedding dance for 300 people the DJ music got louder as the night came on. Even though, again, I recognize the music all I actually heard was throbbing bass. All the other instruments sounded like a mix of blaring white, pink, and brown noise. I certainly felt the music, but did not hear it.

When this art is on display, the dilemma is the volume of the artworks. No matter who is in charged the artist’s preferred volume set in the Studio will need to be adjusted down for any public display. To help set the volume at public events I dug out my old sound level meter from Radio Shack. I put in a fresh 9 volt battery and this analog device, of course, worked. I use the meter to test and set a base reasonable volume in my Studio. I found that to be around 65 decides with spikes into the seventies. It can be louder but for this artwork those settings are enough that I can hear the music. I can feel the music.

With some experimentation and feedback from my last exhibit I am going with a gallery setting from 50 to a peak of 60 decibels. The sound meter manual states those levels would correspond to the residential to background music setting. Any volume lower than 50 number did not work for me. I am capping spikes at 64 decibels. I take all the measurements about 30 inches back from the artwork. This is only a starting position. I certainly know when hanging these works in either a private or public spaces, there will always be the threat of turn-it-down. In those moments I will do just that while hearing in my head the voice of Meat Loaf saying: “If it is too loud you’re too old.”

Sound Level Meter manual

Using the sound level meter, I have found a strange effect I am unsure of. When I compare at equal volumes, a better quality stereo system to a lesser quality system, the sound from the better system sounds consistently louder. The difference may be the quality of the sound being reproduced. Therefore, here is the mp3 of the music box music from Dance Monkey. Since a listener is not in the Studio, it’s okay to set the volume of Dance Monkey at a level depending on the quality of the stereo system. Find your level for this music needs to be felt to be heard. Although, in the Studio, my music varies in volume, quieter in the daytime, louder into the night. No sound level meter needed.

Dance Monkey final Music Box cover

This is an update on the previous artwork Cheap Thrills. The images below show the upgraded Cheap Thrills stereo system, and a test amplifier I used on Dance Monkey. In my comparison testing, setting the volumes close on both artworks, the differences surprised me. Some of this might be the music, but the sound coming out of the Dance Monkey amplifier system feels to me to be wider, with better separation between instruments. That may be because the test amplifier has both treble and a bass controls.

Cheap Thrills upgraded 20watt stereo system. Amplier is on the upper left.
Cheap Thrills 100watt stereo system. Amplifier is on the right.

Originally, the artwork Cheap Thrills came with a 2 watt stereo system for the cover music that is under one minute. I thought this would save time and money over a 20watt system. I thought the 2watt system was appropriate for these mini styled works. I was wrong. In short, the 2watt stereo, even at its maximum volume of 60 decibels, lacked clarity, separation, sound depth, and detail. The 20watt upgrade resolved all those issues and made Cheap Thrills cover music sound almost as good as my major and much larger works, which have cover music limited to a length of a minute and a half.

Les Demoiselles d’Avignon 1907 MOMA 2015 photo taken by my lifelong friend now passed, Tom Haley

Next Music Box project is called Fast Car. Tracy Chapman wrote and released the song Fast Car in 1988, Luke Combs recently covered it, in 2023.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Final image Cheap Thrills

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Cheap Thrills ≈L47.50″xH31.25″xD6.25″

What thrills me first about cheap thrills is the time saved when I only need to cut out circles to represent the artwork’s notation. And even more important thrill is I like what I see on the canvas that hangs the artwork. That eight by twenty-four inch canvas has multiple layers of spaghetti like words that appear to be a word salad of semi-abstraction. I place words on an artwork from the lyrics of Cheap Thrills to help bind the music to the artwork. That is why on the main canvas, my clumsy cursive writing is fairly legible.

For this mini artwork to accommodate my attention rule for mini artworks, the cover music length must be under one-minute. This requires extra shrinking down of a song, while retaining as much catchy melody as possible. The Cheap Thrills cover is 51 seconds. I compose, modify, and adjusted this cover on my desktop computer using a quality Bose speaker system. With it I can hear all the subtle differences in the sound, especially when I turn up the volume. This range of volume of the Bose system helps me to create a decent sound track for each artwork. But apparently, installing the cover music on a small 2-watt stereo system powering 4-inch 2-way speakers wastes much of the effort. I found that the 2-watt system’s lack of volume range weakens all the subtleties of the original cover sound heard on the Bose. Even the effort to maximizing the volume, no clipping, the 2-watt stereo system has no punch compared to the 20watt systems on my large artworks. On these small artworks the cover music plays out to the listener at around 60 decides. That is comparable to light conversation. Although disappointing to listen to as music, these mini works, besides their boutique portable size, play their cover music at a volume level that should not offend any listener’s ears, and be enough for most moderate sized rooms.

Not irrating the listener I found has been an issue with this art. For example, when I was picking up a large artwork after an exhibition, the curator told me that my music echoed loudly in the gallery. Obviously, this is a gallery that prefers its art to be seen but not heard. Then recently my volume issue came up when setting up the large Beatles triptych at another exhibition. That curator asked me to turn down my powerful 20-watt music boxes to conversational levels. She tested it while I adjusted the volume. The Beatles’ music lost much of its bite, its presence, and its purpose. I did not like that, but had little choice. I understood her requirements but disliked the idea of big artwork having little sound. The balance is all wrong. The good news for these mini artworks is that my volume issue should never be an issue with them until it is. Their meek sound is okay if it balances well with the dinky artworks and the stupid standard of a visitor’s conversational levels.

Here is an modified version of my Instagram post of Cheap Thrills. And yes it is silly, but here it is anyway.

Okay, after watching that YouTube video, I think I have had my fill (actually emptiness) of the audio from a 2watt stereo. The music that was playing in order to sound more normal sounding awful, I doubled the volume (increase was 10.37 decidable). I had first tried to increase the output in the software for more volume and a deeper sound, but found I had already reached the system’s limits. That is when I realized I had also reached my limit. I will update the audio on both this artwork and the other mini artwork, A Day in the Life, to the much better sounding, 20 watt system used in all the major artworks. I have another reason for this change.

I limit the cover music length on mini artworks to under one minute. The issue I found was my effort on these mini artworks audio is as time consuming and detailed orientated as the longer cover music I create for major artworks. That is because I care deeply and respectfully the music I am portraying. Therefore, why should I listen to my hard earned cover music sounding weak, tin can like, and totally lacking depth? I cannot justify that compromise any longer. I am done with 2watt audio systems. Once updated, these two mini works will have the option of actually have a range from soft to loud. This allows me to balance the sound and the art in its space. It is a good feeling that I can finally let reality return to the surface. I am eager to ride the next available wave to see if these mini works can truly float by themselves.

Cheap Thrills audio.

Scott Von Holzen