Category: Classic Rock

S_V_H Mercy, Mercy, Me final image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Mercy Me Constructive Sculpture 65.5L x20.5H x3.75D

This is the final image of the music of Marvin Gaye, Mercy Me.  This artwork’s submission offers another opportunity for an upcoming exhibition that has an environment theme.  Early this year, I decided to not take part in any Art Fairs.  To make up for that lost exposure I made plans to apply to Call for Artists opportunities available in the state.  This spring I submitted my artworks to the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art, The Trout Museum, and to the local ArtsWest Exhibition.  They accepted me at both ArtsWest and the Trout but I missed the outstanding chance to show in Madison.  After applying for those shows, to my surprise, I found no other new up-and-coming Call for Artists chances to show in the state.  That was the motivation for me for this local show.

While working on Mercy Me, I received a new Call for Artists from the Pablo Center for the Arts for their 2nd annual Art show.  This is the same show last year that rejected Mozart’s Turkish March.  This year The Turkish March is on view at the Trout Museum.  Rejections are a part of finding your way.  Although disappointed by not being a part of the Pablo’s grand opening,  I moved on with only minor surface damage.  With that in mind, for this year’s Pablo show I will up game and create another even more outstanding artwork: The Blue Danube from  2001 Space Odyssey.   Under time constraints I felt it was now time to finish Mercy Me.

I saved time on Mercy Me by not installing the music hardware.  If the artwork makes it into the show, then I will upgrade Mercy Me with its accompanying music.  I then reconsidered the time-consuming job of hand painting the words for this artwork.  That resulted in finding three digital images of painted wood in different stages of peeling.  Those images are the backgrounds for the printed words Mercy, Mercy, and me.  I have always painted the words in my artworks knowing that art reviewers judge the quality of the craftsmanship.  For times’ sake printing saved a day’s worth of work, besides adding meaning to this artwork’s message: our responsibility for maintaining our environment.   The collage works by Pablo Picasso, and the combines by Rauschenberg, and my age made me reconsider the value of saving time.  I appreciate craftsmanship but the message should judge art.  Mercy Me took 22 days to complete.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Mercy Mercy Me (Ecology) first image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is the first image for an exhibition with an environmental theme.   My submission is the music of Marvin Gaye,  Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology)  This song would not have been my first choice of  Marvin Gaye music if it was not for the opportunity to show.*  At first, I felt no way could I qualify after reading the Pablo’s exhibition details.  Part of it read “….. this exhibit will feature works of art that examine how we interact with and effect the surrounding environment. We invite designers, artists, and creatives of all kinds who work with environmental topics or interests in the Life Sciences to apply…..”  I do not comprehend what the Pablo Center expects for entries.  Their statement was so general, that music with environmental concerns may well quality.  The song Mercy Mercy Me (The Ecology) was my obvious first choice.  While developing this project my research brought up another song choice, Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell.   Too deep into Mercy to change I dropped Taxi idea.  It will be a great choice for the next environment exhibition.

The song Mercy Mercy takes me back to a faint memory of the first Earth Day and the commotion on the campus of the University of Wisconsin. I did not take part that April day in 1970.  While at the University I recall discussions concerning feeding an overpopulated world but not the environment.   Back then I was mostly into graduating, meeting girls, and reducing sugar in my diet.  Who can forget the taste of Tab?

Here is a video of Marvin Gaye’s Mercy Mercy Me:

The color theme of this artwork is simple ecology.  The musical staffs, or my musical sticks, represent the land as bright green.  As the music moves across the artwork the colors fade to a near-death brown.  Then my sticks revive to a life returning light green that deepens to symbolize the recovery of the environment.  The round musical flow wood shapes, covered with digital canvas images of the sky follow the same environments changes.  I cover the 10×10 canvases to protect the mounted digital canvas images.

Scott Von Holzen

*My favorite Marvin Gaye song is I Heard it through the Grapevine.  That moment arrived at the opening scene of the movie The Big Chill.  I must not forget the California Raisins commercials. 

S_V_H God Only Knows

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
God Only Knows, 29 3/4″ x 13 1/2″ Canvas, aluminum with wood features.

This little commission artwork is finished. It took a lot longer than I thought. The issue, and I already know this, is no matter the size of the artwork the prep, the decision-making and the problem solving ends up consuming the same amount of time no matter the size of the artwork.

I am not comfortable working with the color green. That really is silly for I have a great range and variety of greens in jars to work with, and for this music green had to dominate the look.
So it does, but don’t expect the next artwork to carry on this look.

The words you see in this work, “God knows you,” come from the music’s lyric, “God only knows what I’d be without you.” What you see in these two sentences, are some shared words with different meanings.  My need, for any words that I use, is that together they do not refer directly to the music.  I always Google down three pages to confirm that there is no connection.  I actually like working with the words in this way.  These artworks go beyond the music that they start with, in direction and meaning. They also have greater depth than any abstract image of the music. As mention in many blog entries before, these artworks are a portrait of an individual piece of music. They represent a musical piece uniqueness and character.

I have to comment on two aspects of this artwork.  The blue you see above the canvases represent the sky. The lighter blue rectangles represent clouds.  The brighter greens and browns you see below the canvasses represent different layers of the earth.

Finally, I do not think I have ever used the word “God,” in any of my artworks. For this music it made sense. My lovely wife, Barb, pointed out that the word ‘knows’ was harder to read than the other two words.  Like all my earlier artworks I have always used one color for all the lettering.  This became a contrast issue after coloring in of the word ‘God,’ on a darker blue-green background,  and then using the same light blue for the word ‘knows’ that is on a lighter green background.  But, when I than tried a darker color for the word ‘knows’,  that made that word too prominent for its use.   My solution was to use the same light blue for all the words. This than allowed the important words “God and You’ stand out while the lighter looking word ‘knows’ to still connect the phrase.   A result, in doing the words this way, is that people will first see the capitalized words ‘God’ and ‘You, and then be presented  with the choice to read, or not, the softer looking in between word ‘knows.’  All this adds complexity, and challenge for the viewer to define their own meaning of this artwork and the music it is portraying.

 

Scott Von Holzen