Category: standard

S_V_H Over the Rainbow 1st image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is the first image of 2019’s version of Over the Rainbow.  What the image shows are the pieces (not yet attached) that I made since starting this project on the 9th of February. I am just short of three weeks into this project.  My thinking is that in three weeks it would have been nice to almost be finished with this work, but of course I am still a week away from that.  I hope.  A big difference with my style, and that of other abstract painters, is  I do not create these artworks  in-the-moment.  They are all well thought out and planned ahead, because of their difficulty to build. Even though I do learn from the past,  each project is a new adventure in design, problem solving and recovery from mistakes.  I have made this art this way since I began.  Beyond a few commission works there have been no deadlines to meet, although I have met them all.  I am no longer going to do any common commission works, that means, for now, my time is mine, for all that is worth.

My first all music painting was Over the Rainbow.  This is my second painting of that music done a few months later in July of 2006.  This may also be one of the first artworks where I used an inch and on-half depth canvas with the unique size of twenty inches by sixty inches.  Before this my standard artwork was a two foot by four-foot on a seven-eights depth canvas.  I remember taking Rainbow to a family gathering at my father’s home soon after I had finished it.  I do not remember any comments from anyone. I do remember why I took it which was because this song meant a lot to me. 

I grew up being fascinated by the movie Wizard of Oz, which way back than,  aired once a year, around Christmas time.  As a kid I remember being strongly moved by how the movie started out in black and white and then switched to color.  Color television was new to me back than, with Disney Wonderful World of Color being a favorite program of mine.  Here is a picture of Judy Garland on the sheet music for Over the Rainbow, I bought for the artworks  from a sheet music store in Wausau now long closed.

Although I never understood the reasons why, or have forgotten them, I always felt that my Mother cared about Judy Garland.  Maybe it was because of the lost of the middle sister, Bernadine from alcohol abuse, which, along with substance abuse, also took the life of Judy Garland four years earlier.  It may have been that Mom saw in both their struggle to find happiness. I will never know.

I do not have a lot of memories of Bernadine, mostly because I was young when she lived near by.  I can see her face, her short hair, thin but shapely body, and thought her voice, in comparison to Moms,  sounded deeper,  sharper, stronger.  I am also seeing and hearing Judy Garland when describing Bernadine, which surprises me. 

After we left Ashland, I do not remember seeing Bernadine or even having any memories of her for many years until 1973.  That summer, Up North at the cottage, I received a phone call that Bernadine had died.  I found Mom and Dad who were out to dinner at a local golf club.  I believe I asked to speak with Mom, but do not remember Moms reaction.  My last memory of Bernadine was at her funeral in 1973, when, by accident, I saw the closing of the coffin (Jack, Bernadine’s husband,  died years later also from alcohol abuse).  The story of the tragedies of Mom, Bernadine, and Judy Garland, contain for me many uncertainties and missing details,  but I have grown up over the years believing that the song Over the Rainbow, and the story of the Wizard of OZ, is part of their story, also.  Back than I may not have understood all of this watching the Wizard of Oz, but what has always been true for me, was the impact of that movie going from black and white to color.  I cannot but today feel that like the switch to color in the Wizard of OZ, Mom, Bernadine, and Judy Garland  live on in me because of this music speaks to their times.  That is why I am painting Over the Rainbow again.  No black and white to be seen.  This artwork will be colorful which tells me that in this artwork, this time, their stories will have a happy ending. They only need to click their heels together three times, and I can do that for them.

 

Here is Over the Rainbow sung by Judy Garland from the 1939 movie Wizard of Oz:

When you look at the 2006 version of Over the Rainbow, there are no rainbow colors. I think, now, that was artsy of me.  The music I used for that painting,  and which Judy sings is “Somewhere over the rainbow skies are blue and the dreams that you dare to dream really do come true.” In the artwork I painted the two words “you dare.” For this artwork  I have chosen the words, “why can’t I,” which comes at the last few measures of  Keith Jarrett’s emotional piano performance of Over the Rainbow. 

Here is Keith Jarrett, Over the Rainbow live in Tokyo:

Lastly,  I should mention that after finishing the first artwork of Over the Rainbow my original plan was to paint a new version of this music every six-months to track my style changes.  I painted only two, both in that same year, 2006.  So it goes.  

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H Embraceable You Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

embraceableYou_FinalEmbraceable you is finished. This painting comes from a Jazz Standard piece written  by George Gershwin in 1928.   This artwork consists of four canvas panels over sixty-four inches in length, and is larger than I had originally planed. What changed this artworks dimensions was my decision to add extra words, and then increase their size.  To make room for the larger font I needed to use larger canvases, which then required me to enlarge the music.

In the original plan I wanted to keep this artwork on the smaller size because of this music’s absence of drama (no slurs or ties, no flags, or beams), but my focus  changed from the music to the words to at least add some interest. That changed in direction created  a problem, absent if I would have used smaller canvases, of what to do with all that space between the music.  After a couple of, what I would consider,  tired attempts at stripping I realized I had nothing. That is when I turned to the painting, I Won’t Dance, a Jerome Kern Jazz Standard from the same time period as Embraceable you.  I Won’t Dance uses Art Deco treatments to mirror the times, and I thought a similar look might work with Embraceable.

IWontDance_Final

To start with I added narrow gold and blue striping across the entire work. That gave it the Art Deco look which did greatly improved the interest and the character of Embraceable.  I then repainted some of the original stripping to improve the contrast, and to blend better with the music.

I actually had to learn like this work. It fell out of favor early in its development, probably because of the changes I made to the original plan.  It got worse when I  questioned the colors used for the music.  I felt my color choices, chosen for their feminine look, where to close in tone which made the music appeared to have a plastic  look.  It was not until I added the Art Deco touches that I realized that the music worked fine with the new look of background.  In the final image you see how everything came together.

My feelings for this artwork have certainly changed a lot since I first chose this music.  I now think Embraceable You does achieved an interesting,  and unique look, that I like. This painting should feel very good about itself, getting out of me, what it needed.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

 

 

 

S_V_H Embraceable You image1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

embraceableYou_1

Embraceable You is larger painting consisting of four canvas panels measuring sixty-four inches by about twenty-four inches high.

Here are three different videos showing different styles for Embraceable You. Many of my artworks try to do the same thing by displaying different looks from one panel to the next.  I do this on purpose to better show the versatility that is in the music.  By using variety in looks I can, in this one way,  then push this art way beyond the limitations of sheet music. That has always been my goal since I started painting music. Music has no limitations, and so should not this art.

First,  is an upbeat version of Embraceable You from the 1943 movie Girl Crazy sung by a young Judy Garland.

Now,  compare that performance of Embraceable You with this one by Wynton Marsalis at the 1989 Newport Jazz Festival

And here is, I believe,  the 1947 Bluesy recording of Embraceable You, Commodore 7520B, sung my Billie Holiday that made it into the Grammy Hall of Fame.

This may seem obvious, but an important point that most music,  like this one piece, can have multiple interpretations.

Surprisingly in image 1 you are seeing a  style change in this artwork. What created this change was my decision in how I was going to handle the lower parts of the first two canvases.   These two canvases contain the main words chosen for this artwork, and I had a concern that the stripping I had along the bottom of both panels would not allow the words to stand out. The easiest solution, one that I have used in the past, was to darken the background where the words where to appear.  That is what I tried with a darker green.  What I found myself doing, though,  was backing off the color to allow the under stripping to stay visible. I decided to go against a solid block look I original thought that I needed for the words.

When I removed a small strip of tape, that I had forgotten along the lower edge, the original stripping remained.  At first I thought that this mistake needed to be over painted,  and then  I saw a new opportunity to finish the background in a different way.  I could still do the stripping, similar to what I have done in the past,  but now I would apply a transparent layer across the entire painting.  By taping sections before hand,  I found then I could keep the uniqueness of each panel, but create a result that brings all four canvases together as a single artwork, representing a single piece of music.

Finding a way to pull this work altogether was an early concern for me because of this music. My stripping, for this painting,  consisted of the two end panels having a similar coloring,  and the second and third panel each portraying a unique look.  This kind of diversity is a common technique I have used before, such as in Heavens’ Wall, but for this music something did not feel right.

To try to resolve these misgivings I did try ideas to shade or draw in some curves and lines to break up the background stripping, like in Heaven’s Wall,  but I washed off all of my attempts.  It was not until I pulled that small piece of tape, that I saw my answer. In a way, I am reversing the look of the background. Now, instead of trying to cover up, or break up, sections of the stripping, I apply tape to cover up some of the original stripping, and then paint over the entire background with a  transparent color  I accomplished the goal of pulling all four panels together, removing my misgivings.  This then is new look for my backgrounds that may  allow me to involve away from the experimental Cubist and Futurists ideas of line and shading.

This blog entry has taken some extra time, so here is Embraceable You with the music flow in place.

embraceableYou_2

Scott Von Holzen