Category: thoughts on being an artist

S_V_H The Blue Danube – Awards Night at the Pablo

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Photo - Barb Von Holzen

This smiling face means that this Art has finally received recognition.  This last Friday night at the Pablo Center artist’s reception for the Homecoming exhibit I received the third prize winner for the artwork The Blue Danube (2001 Space Odyssey).   It surprised both Barb and me.  This is the fourth reception this year we attended, and at each event, there was always hope that the artwork would receive at less an honorable mention.  In the lead up to the prizes being announced Rose Dolan-Neill the Visual and Literary Arts Manager mentioned that they received four-hundred applications from thirty states and that they had a difficult time choosing the fifty-three that were apart from this show.  She considers us all winners and I believe her.  In the audience, there was not one artist that did not think they deserved the Grand prize. The juror for the Pablo show was Yoonshin Park.

I remember telling Barb that I wanted to talk to the juror and approached Yoonshin Park in the awards room, even though there were others standing by her.  I was on a mission and eager to ask for feedback.  Because I was on an emotional victory high, I recall only parts of the conversation between Yoonshin Park, her friend, and me.

To describe the overall exchange I would say it was, enthusiastic, exciting and fast-paced, and confusing.  To my disappointment, I had difficulty in understanding Yoonshin Park’s English accent.  She was born in Seoul Korean.  Here is the Pablo’s information about the juror:  “Yoonshin Park is working with sculptural papers, artist books, and installation. Her main media concentration is pulp, paper and books. Her interest in comprehensive process of paper making and book binding caters her work to en-compass various elements woven into complete objects. She received her M.A. and M.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Book and Paper Arts from Columbia College Chicago. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally. She was born in Seoul, Korea and currently resides in Chicago, IL.”

FRAGMENTS OF MY CONVERSATION WITH YOONSHIN PARK:

There was one moment when Yoonshin Part spoke and I repeated the words in my mind so to try to not forget.  She said these specific words about this art “…different direction…”  To my great disappointment, I cannot remember what she said right before or after.  I remember her saying she had a hard decision choosing between The Blue Danube and another entry, Mozart Serenade No. 13.  With the mention of Mozart during our conversation, I bought up my current artwork, Twinkle Little Star, and told her about the connection with Mozart.  She said she knew the music adding no further details.  She asked about the size of the work, and I said about five feet by four feet, and she and her friend both had a reaction, but I did follow up to know what they meant.  I remember her praising how the features,  structure, or makeup of The Blue Danube, worked so well together.  I remember her talking about her understanding of the artwork, and as I listen I became lost.  I pointed to the picture of The Blue Danube on my award to make sure she had not mistaken my artwork for another winner at the show.  She said yes she was talking about the Danube and I said something about I never looked at the artwork that way.  I don’t remember her description.  I remember praising her as an artist and may have asked her something about the moment that she thought she had made it as an artist?  To my surprise, she looked away from me and mentioned that for four years she struggled and did little or no work on her art.  I remember no more other details about her art, but I recall being surprised by her honestly.  I think she asked how did I come up with the description of my art, which is Interactive Constructed Sculpture.  I told Yoonshin that I never like the term, mixed media.  I mentioned that I had 200 art books, maybe to tell her how I came across the term.  Then I described Pablo Picasso’s cardboard wall sculpture of a violin (actually it was a guitar) he did in 1911, which was the first Constructed Sculpture.  I asked her about getting my art out so more could see it.   I said something like I didn’t want this art to die in Eau Claire.  Although, I quickly defended Eau Claire for being good for my art.   That is when she and her friend both perked up and after a short search, Yoonshin pulled out her calling card and pen and wrote Chicago Sculpture International.  She is a member and spoke about an upcoming exhibition at the Bridgeport Museum if I did not mind traveling. Then her friend mentioned, and Yoonshin wrote the web address callforentry.org that she thought would be helpful.  I do not know why it came up, but I told her one of my goals was to walk into the museum of Modern Art and look across the gallery and see my name on an artwork.  I then said somewhat awkwardly that I would then look for my next goal.   For reasoning beyond me, I said to her not everyone can be a child prodigy.  That statement seemed to light both of them up in agreement.  I continued that some of us have to take the moment whenever it comes. For me, at seventy I wanted to take the next twenty years to see how far this art could go.  Yoonshin Park was kind, thoughtful, open and helpful. Talking and listening to her was as important to me as the award.  I have never had a conversation with a successful contemporary Artist.  It thrilled me.  I lastly remember asking her if it would be okay to email her and she was fine with that.  A few other remembrances are that I slouch down so I could have more eye to eye contact with Yoonshin.  I remember her standing there with her coat wrapped over her arm.   I reached out a few times and lightly touching her coat when we were talking.  I guess to add emphasis to a point I was making, but wish I had not.  Finally, when they were ready to move on, I gently shook their hands and remembered saying to her friend, who was much taller than Yoonshin and dress in all black with a hat, that it was nice meeting her even though no one had mentioned her name.

Awards Ceremony clip of me receiving third-place at the Pablo Center for the Artwork The Blue Danube.  I never thought of the video and did not realize that Barb had captured this important moment.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Up On the Roof Final image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

upOnTheRoofFinal

Up On The Roof is signed and ready to go on sale.  You can buy this artwork HERE, or a print HERE. This artwork uses a technique where I have lighten my musical notes as they flow across the canvases from left to right. The whole idea of this work was for the viewer to see a change in mood in the work, from gloomy to hopeful.  From the first canvas I then pushed the next three out from each other to bring the final canvas work closer to the viewer and to the brighter mood of this last panel. This work has been a challenge, that has taken to long to complete.  I wanted to finish this work in two to three weeks.  Instead it has taken eight weeks. Of course there was the big interruption with the Christmas artwork, but this only confirms my difficultly in working on two works at once and finishing each of them in a reasonable amount of time.

The struggle continues:

I have looking for a new home for Blue Rondo, so I stopped by the Jefferson Street Inn, and strange, Tim the head maintenance man and a friend,  mentioned two other options. One was over the main entrance door and the other space was over the elevator door. Just the sight of those two suggested locations sent dread through me, as memories of walking with the Professor into the orchestra room caved in on me.

The dream lives:

This art will find it’s way, which includes Blue Rondo, with or without me. Of course I would like to be a participant in bringing these artworks to the surface, before I drown in neglect, but there are no guarantees, only choices.  And those choices I have no other option but to choose: the art leads, if I want to be an artist.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Vivaldi’s Spring Danza Pastorale image3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

4sSpringDanza3

This is the eighth canvas in the Vivaldi’s The Four Seasons Series. This work is about thirteen feet in length. Again, these large images are hard to photograph and even more difficult to separate from their backgrounds.  I do not have enough natural light in my studio so to photograph an artwork  I use flash for my light source.  The problem with flash, is the issue with glare, which becomes more of a problem the larger the work.  A long artwork makes it physically impossible to find the right space to take a good photograph.  So, to get a decent image, of these large works,  I have had no other choice but to take them outside, placing  them precariously in the bright shade.  I have also found that the best way to get a good size working image is to take a left and a right photo,and then use Photomerge to put them together.  Generally, it works if  each image can be aligned with the camera,which lowers the distortion,  but this is difficult to do outside.  The final images are never perfect. That is where Photoshop comes in, to bring the two images together, creating a large detailed image.

The progress of this work has slowed for many reasons.  Right now, the beams are done, and you can see that all eight of the ties, all those colorful half circles,  have been completed.  How I will actually draw in the ties I am not sure.  One thought is that I really do not have to draw them in.  All those circles can easily represent a musical tie.  There is a similar half circle  in Blue Rondo, but in that work I did draw in the tie.  In this artwork, drawing in the ties would be a lot more time-consuming, but  I am still leaning on drawing something inside those circles.   I need to experiment, to see if I can come up with any new ideas, which is the next step in this artwork.  Unlike work were you have your fellow employees to bounce ideas of, and get feedback, a real artist is pretty much on his own.

Scott

When asked what I do, I say what my job is, but then followup with that I also  paint fine art at night.  They always ask me what have I sold.  I tell them, five works, but nothing lately.  The conversation then enters the mopping up stage where my artistry becomes defined as a hobby, which is nice and personally rewarding.  Defining  my art  as  amateur,  leaves me looking for an exit sentence.  But generally those type of conversations end quickly, which I am fine with.  It all seems like a waste of time. anyway, trying to explain myself, my art, and what goes on at night to causal viewers.  All art is  personnel, and if it is Fine Art, it exists in a world beyond the understanding of most people. These type of conversations, anyway, are about finding ways to put people in boxes, and some people have put me  in the have fun with art box.

So, that brings me to this. I think I found  how the established  Art World would perceive me, if they wished.  Here is a video link to CBS’s Outsider Art, which is Art that, at times appears similar to Folk Art, Self-Taught art, or Naïve Art.  But when I look at my art, I do not see anything that looks like Folk Art.  I do see Outsider Art in that my works  are works of  Fine Art, but just not recognized in the Main Street of the Art World. In the  video they expand greatly on my definition, in part that it  comes from “self-taught artists: that have little or “no formal training,”  whose created world has “no connections to commercial art world, to museums, to galleries.”   So now when strangers ask me about my Art, I can now say I am an Outsider Artist.   What a fine box that is.

Listening to Keane – Your Eyes Open

Scott Von Holzen