Tag: ART

I now have a working layout for the three artworks for The Beatles’ triptych project. I do this to confirm that all the sampling notes fit on each artwork. Below, I am showing the layout image that illustrates the hanging order. Following the same order of Paul McCartney’s video featured in the previous blog, the first image on the left will be Golden Slumbers. The center image is Carry that Weight. The right image is The End.

In the past, I have worked on one project at a time from start to finish. Every new music box project begins with the creation, in PerSonus Notion, of a draft cover of the music. I then take my cover sheet music and chose the sample that would be the worksheet for portraying the music. I did not do that with this project. Instead, I first put together the worksheet sample for each of the artworks. This change came about when I decided I needed to build all three artworks together. I decided that each would share a common design, the same use of color, and other visual features. This came about because of time constraints needing all three completed by the coming mid to late January. That then pushed me to get this multiple project going, knowing that the cover music was secondary to the need to have completed artworks. Currently already deep into this project, the time line looks a lot better. I believe now that I will have both the artworks and their music boxes completed before they’re hanging in January.

Currently, I am working on the backside of the artwork Golden Slumbers. The image below shows the installed steel plates across the top side of the artwork and in the speaker box. From the layout seen above for Golden I have added to both speaker boxes a steel plate to move two notes from each row off the main canvas. I had to do this after using the arrangement of the layout. I realized that twelve notes across a thirty-six inch canvas would be a tight fit.

Scott Von Holzen

This is the first time I have used Liquitex acrylic pens for the cursive writing on these three panels. I learned quickly their use writing the words for Golden Slippers on the left. All did not go well. I made adjustments and the last two canvases’ appearance improved. I am a better printer than a cursive writer. That you can see in the cropped Vivaldi’s image below. But this current is no longer a product of that time.

When I saw the handwriting of Jean-Michael Basquiat, that gave me the excuse I needed. I needed an excuse? Before Basquiat I would tolerate the time-consuming perfection of the printed words seen obviously in all thirteen artworks of the Vivaldi series. When I looked at Basquiat paintings, I realize the difficulty of beautiful penmanship or calligraphy was no longer a necessity for this art. I could move on. That I could print or write in my own unique style was a relief. That is when I switched from printing the word to cursive.

My reasoning is cursive writing is more natural, and more fluid for me. Also, cursive, in my handwriting style, is so bad that at the time it takes on an abstract look, that printing lacked. I like that a lot. I am now comfortable with the look at my words on these artworks. Importantly, every letter carries with it the look of me. Therefore, I do not care if they are legible, knowing that by repeating them eventually the viewer will be figure out what they say.

As is obvious from the opening image, I am putting together all three artworks at once. I am also sharing their style and the colors used. What will separate each canvas are the words, the arrangement of the notes, and the placement of the speaker canvases. When finished, these three works will hang as one artwork.

I am creating these three artworks, as a triptych, to make a statement to my art group, EmptyWallsArt, and to the artist community that I am, I guess, still a part of. This needs to be done. I am well aware of the importance of what I am doing. I am also aware of how difficult it is for others to see the value of what is being done. The why answer is simple: this art rarely sells. That is my fault, for my emphasis has never been on selling this art. My focus, from day one, was to push art history forward in a different direction. Never was it about making money. Although, I would certainly love to cover my art expenses that run thousands of dollars each year. The failure to promote this art may be in not figuring out what marketing direction I should focus on. What I know is that cheap everyday contemporary arts’ value is in decoration, while art sold by Christie or Sotheby’s auction houses is an investment. Neither of those ideas is realistic for me. So it goes. So, I need another find another market idea to keep this art on the move.

Scott Von Holzen