Tag: ART

S_V_H Walking in Memphis image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Artwork over 80 inches in length.

For this image of Walking in Memphis I have used a spacer boards so I can display the two sections together.  Right now the length of the artwork is eighty-four inches.  My music for Walking in Memphis is all in place and portrays the ending of the song, where it repeats the beginning.  Here are those words:

“Put on my blue suede shoes And I boarded the plane.  Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues In the middle of the pouring rain
Touched down in the land of the Delta Blues In the middle of the pouring rain.”
-Walking in Memphis Marc Cohen
The video for Walking in Memphis is in black and white.  I painted many of the shafts black and white with shades of gray in between.  I also picked a color to represent the Blues and painted the remaining shafts blue.  I arranged all the shafts into the two sections of the artwork.  To show my appreciation for Jackson Pollock, I clamped all the shafts from each section together.  Then I chose four different colors of fluid acrylics and pour each color into syringe like small plastic bottles.  I then squeezed out the fluid paint across all the wood pieces.  I chose the colors red, blue, yellow, and green for they appear in many of the Beale street neon signs.  Here is an example:
My version of Pollock’s style of drip painting when first applied mimics his style: swirls of paint.  My twist is that I then separate all the shafts.  This spreads the flow creating more movement and drama.
Finally,  I chose for the notes a mixed blue to resemble the color of the only pair of Elvis’s blue suede shoes:

In the four corners I have eight by ten canvases that I have covered with digital canvas night images of today’s Beale Street.  Later on I will add some much older black and white images of Beale Street, and other interesting items Marc Cohen sings about.

 

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Walking in Memphis image 1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

Walking in Memphis first image shows the prep so far for this sculpture.  My work sheet has a start date of July 16th.   Since then I have spent much of my mornings, afternoons, and evenings cutting, sanding, and painting pieces of wood.  Now the fun part, putting the artwork together.

I have always liked this song.  One connection to this music is that I visited Memphis around the early nineties and toured Elvis’s home and the grounds.  My remembrances are that the house was not ‘big’ for a mansion, and I could not go up the long stairs to the bathroom where he died.  It shocked me to look at the Google Street view of Graceland today.  It now looks like a theme park.  During my visit I don’t recall many other visitors being there.  I remember walking through the gates and into the house, no guide, and then wandered the other buildings and his grave.  The house with its unique theme rooms are still the coolest part.

After choosing this song I spent days doing research.  I read up on Beale Street and searched for images both new and old.  The past pictures I found several copyright free images.  As for current images, because of the neon everywhere, finding night pictures was difficult.  Most of the Beale Street images I found had copyright requirements for their use.   After more exhausting search, I found three free use images by Heidi Kaden only asking, if you wish, this photography credit:  Photo by Heidi Kaden on Unsplash.   I looked at Beale Street using Google Street view.  It is almost being there without worry about parking.  Beale Street was where the Memphis Blues style developed with the help of great musicians like Louis Armstrong, Muddy Waters, Albert King, B. B. King and other blues and jazz legends (Wikipedia).   To my surprise, they performed on a short two block stretch of blues clubs from 4th to 2nd street.

Here is the music of Marc Cohen who sings and wrote the 1991 song Walking in Memphis:

 

Coming up more ideas on the many ways I will connect this artwork with the music, and the street.

Scott Von Holzen

 

S_V_H The Blue Danube image 3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

In this third image of Blue Danube, I have both sections connected for a length of eighty-one inches.  In this image, you can see the mix of black and white objects.  If you could see the artwork from the side,  I have place white dots on the black stems to refer to deep space.  The white stems represent all the different spaceships from the movie.  They designed those spaceships with detailed and varying surfaces.  At first, I tried to used stencils to add some markings to the white stems. That did not work.  Instead, I used a mechanical pencil to draw in the shapes from the stencil and then sealed them with a white glaze.  In the lower section, right side, I have designed the highest note to look like the space station from the opening scenes from the Blue Danube video.  All this would look a lot more interesting if the background would be darker.

I have until the eighth of July to entry this artwork.  I still have a lot of decorative and interest items to add.  Those types of things are important to the look, and depth of the artwork.  The last thing then would be to add the stereo music system.

 

Scott Von Holzen