Category: contemporary music

S_V_H 1st image All too Well

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
YouTube Video Taylor Swift – All Too Well (Taylor’s Version)(Lyric Video)
This is a working draft of the music. I can then create the artwork’s music feature. I am also assured that the cover music length will be close to the 1:30 maximum I set for larger or more important projects.

I am a Taylor Swift fan. How do I know for sure? I found that answer in the number of her songs that are in my Spotify Liked Songs list that reaches to 2,472. A surprising 29 songs on this list are by Taylor Swift. In contrast, I have 44 songs by Bruce Springsteen. That makes sense. I grew up hearing his music on the radio. Billie Holiday, another long-time favorite, and a close woman second to Taylor at 25. I have 9 Mozart songs and 10 Beethoven songs in my Like Songs. My classical favorite since the beginning of this art, Antonio Vivaldi, has 28 songs in my Like Songs.

All too Well 40Hx30WxD6.75 inches

I know it is hard to grasp, but this first image colors for All Too Well all came from the video. To explain, watching the video, I saw the colors in the changing seasons. That gave me my color direction. This project will comprise different shades of blue, green, brown, and white. This video, like many I have used in the past, is helpful in giving me direction and, at times, insight into the artist’s thinking and their taste for colors.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H The Scientist 2nd image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
The Scientist. The main canvas is 36 by 24 inches.

I have finished the artwork, and the image above shows the music’s up and down flow for the lyrics: “Nobody said it was easy. No one ever said it would be this hard.” My impression, compared to the previous project, is this artwork’s style is simpler, with a cleaner, less congested look. That happened for I found a method, different from using U-shaped aluminum, to ensure that the support boards holding the music hold their shape. One other difference is I am experimenting with using a shorter three foot metal bar that matches the main canvases length. This metal type has a better magnetic hold when attaching the music.

Building the speaker boxes and working on placement of the stereo system

This art rests on a song’s melody. All projects begin when a music’s melody catches my attention. Contemporary music, and certainly rap, places a greater emphasis on the beat, with the melody often taking a supporting role or used only to elevate the song. However, I do fine exceptional music to paint regardless of the decade. Melody alone may not be enough to be my next project. Frequently, I opt for a song because of its lyrics and how they align with my mood, even if the melody is not exceptional.

I recently read that there are 120,000 songs uploaded to streaming services every day. Also, online art sites like Saatchi Art for example, have over 1 million pieces of art on display for sale. I thought the internet allowed a person not in a major art center to get connected to the wider art market. Yes, I am connected, connected with a million others trying to get connected. And that is my current art path: an unending merry-go-around that keeps bringing me back to where I started. Once again, here I am, back at another crossroads.

It appears my social art group, EmptyWallsArt, is no longer. I am still working with four remaining members to do a local show in a wine bar, but that is it. I am taking part in this show even though I know this art does not have a ghost-of-a-chance* to sell, or even get a mentioned. Bars and restaurants that hang art, hang Decorative Art, and this art lacks the market appeal.

* “Like a million little doorways
All the choices we made
All the stages we passed through
All the roles we played” – Rush – Ghost of a Chance ( C grade for lacking melody and yet many comments on how much they love this song and this live performance)

I first heard this interesting comment when picking up a Mozart artwork at the Trout Museum in 2019. A woman said how the children enjoyed playing the music. Since then, other comments from a show have been about the music. I do not recall any comments other than the music. Even beyond art shows, I do not recall any memorable comments directed to my artworks over the last 18 years beyond a work’s color choices. Maybe there were comments long ago when I sold on Etsy, but I don’t recall. And if I missed something said about an artwork, it surely would have been a brief comment, and rarely a question.

Those times that someone has commented have always surprised me. Of course, having my moment, my reaction would be to over explain and detail the artwork to them. And yet consistently silence, or a nod, always followed my response. Recently I began wondering if maybe this art is difficult to understand. Commenting on the music is easy, compared to an artwork that is not a figurative portrait, a landscape, a still life, or an abstraction. Therefore, the casual viewer, and the juror, passes by, having nothing to compare it to. I believe my decision years ago that in order for me to take up painting; I had to find a style that was all my own. I certainly accomplished that.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H First image The Scientist

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
The Scientist 36″ main canvas

My next project is The Scientist by Coldplay. I have liked this melody for a long time but hesitated to do it for I had recently completed a Coldplay project in 2023. I changed my mind because of the lyrics. What caught my attention are these words that the artwork will be portraying.
“Nobody said it was easy
No one ever said it would be so hard“
Those words remind me of what I am going through trying to get this art out of storage and into the open where it belongs.

The Studio’s new artwork storage shelf

I have a problem in that I am running out of space to store artworks. I only have the lower level below the studio, and I have filled it up with over 200 works. With the effort of my son-in-law, who is good at building anything out of wood, we found and he built a space to store more works. In the image above the lower floor is already in use and full. What is new is the added second level, that is eight by eight feet in size that should handle of couple of years of additional works.

I found this (unauthorized) but sharper image online of the piano used in the live performance of The Scientist.
This video live performance of The Scientist is where I first saw Coldplays painted piano.

After seeing the painted piano in the Coldplay video, I looked around at other live performances to get a better idea of the colors that were used. I found they use several pianos of the same model, each painted differently. This made my pick of colors for the two canvases easy. I am always looking to connect the music or the artist to the artwork. It is Coldplay’s color choices for the pianos that I used to connect this artwork to Coldplay, and not the designs or words painted on the pianos.

Scott Von Holzen