Tag: artwork

S_V_H Vivaldi 4 season image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
The completed music for this artwork project spread out on the floor with the artwork’s canvases leaning up against previous projects.

This project began on January 11th. It is now nearing the end of February, and I am only at the point of completing the artwork’s music for each of the four seasons. With that part completed I can now turn my attention to the electronics for this artwork. This challenge is that when a visitor presses the green button, the Spring canvas will light up and play its part. When finished, the artwork will then, in series, light up the next three seasons, playing that music, ending in less than 90 seconds.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Flowers

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Flowers ≈H45xL31xD9 inches

Signed and dated, the only task left to do on Flowers is to add the LED light strip, which I will do in a couple of days. My main take away on this music box is I like the strong contrast between the canvas and the music. I will follow this trend into the future. The chosen colors work for the music and for the final lyrics I added the words “you can.” I forgot them at first and had to paint over sections to match the background to add them. I had the same issue with Make you Love Me when I chose the wrong color for that artworks lyrics. To my surprise, I could repaint and match the background for that work. That gave me the confidence to fix my word error on Flowers.

I will mention this one last time: I like this 30 x 40 inch sized artworks. What I mean by like is the look of the artwork because of its rectangle shape has the feeling of classical artworks. That works for me for two reasons. First, the size is large, but not too large to fit comfortably on a wall in any upscale home. Also, each finished artwork becomes the template for the next project, making production and storage a lot easier. I will continue this vertical look, that to me feels well balanced, and a radical change from the last 19 years of sheet music length art. This art current look is sophisticated, classy, and invitingly simple in appearance.

Final thoughts on the project Flowers. Music Box Cover begins at 8:22.

I stated in the video that much of today’s art, and this includes popular music, suffers from same old, same old overproduction. I acknowledge the high quality production skill and craftmanship, but find the results, at last, to be boring. Beautiful and attention grabbing art is being created. It just all seems like one continuing movie sequel, that charges more for diminishing returns. And then there are the artist statements that seem desperate to add depth and meaning to the work. I can go on, and on about ” much ado about nothing,” or “in the moment” art and music, but I think this quote for Peggy Lee’s 1969 classic hit sums up my feelings about today’s art and music:
“Is that all there is
Is that all there is
If that’s all there is, my friends
Then let’s keep dancing
Let’s break out the booze and have a ball
If that’s all there is” – Peggy Lee

For giggles here are examples of random artist’s statements online, with little thought that I quickly pulled from the largest Gallery in the world, Gagosian. The actual art I see as “oh well, this is the art that is oozing money out of galleries today?“

“The Baroque always connects two extremes, like light and shadow, in one body, one painting. History outside against a wild body inside, cultured and uncultured, cooked and uncooked, greed and expressionism, rationalism and irrationality, cold and hot.“
—Adriana Varejão

Painting is an act that connects reality and consciousness. It is more than a collective codification of signs. It is a performance that awakens the delirium of vision.
—Richard Wright

Most are afraid of total freedom, of nothingness, of life. You try to control everything, but nature is uncontrollable. It doesn’t matter how you express yourself (words, image, electric guitar), what matters is that you have something to express.
—Steven Parrino

(If you have a long enough attention span, this statement says a lot about today’s art and music production for me)
Christopher Wool is best known for his paintings of large, black, stenciled letters on white canvases, but he possesses a wide range of styles; using a combined array of painterly techniques, including spray painting, hand painting, and screen-printing, he provides tension between painting and erasing, gesture and removal, depth and flatness. By painting layer upon layer of whites and off-whites over screen-printed elements used in previous works—monochrome forms taken from reproductions, enlargements of details of photographs, screens, and Polaroids of his own paintings—he accretes the surface of his pressurized paintings while apparently voiding their very substance. Only ghosts and impediments to the field of vision remain, each fixed in its individual temporality. Through these various procedures of application and cancellation, Wool obscures the liminal traces of previous elements, putting reproduction and negation to generative use in forming a new chapter in contemporary painting. His paintings can therefore be defined as much by what they are not and what they hold back as what they are.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Final Image Everything I Do

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Everything I Do ≈ H46 x L30.5 x D9.5 inches

The artwork, Everything I do, is an example in a long line of breakthrough projects that have changed the look, the style, and the direction of this art. I have four reasons for this style shift. First is simple: I was tired of the current direction. I took another new look at Mark Rothko. Using only one standard size canvas for transport makes it easier to pack into our car. Finally, having the ability to place three rows of music on a single 40 x 30 inch canvas looks much better than I thought it would.

When I look at this artwork, I see the familiar vertical standard appearance of art. It seems less aggressive to me and it does not go every which way, maybe making it a little easier for the viewer to grasp. My one minor concern is because of the height of these artworks and their depth nearing 10 inches, storage is going to need a reshuffling of my limited storage space. And this change, like all the previous moves this art has made, may not be the one that changes the circle of life of these artworks.

Each project starts with finding a song. Then I create a rough cut of the cover music. Next comes the build and painting followed by creating of the final soundtrack. Then there is the dating, signing, and the recording of a final thoughts video. There may be, but more so, maybe not a public showing. No matter, there will not be any feedback. In the Studio it will remain for a few months for reference. Then I will put it in storage. Repeat. But I do not fault this path. It makes for a work routine and keeps me moving this art ahead. To counter this reality, I actually received a pleasant surprise.

I received a comment (it feels honest) on my YouTube channel. But first I will mention that for this art to receive any comments is rare, and only slightly rarer than comments from those who know of this art. What makes this comment on this art worth mentioning is that considering the last 18 plus years, I have never had a spoken or written comment that has gone much beyond one sentence, or much beyond my collection of rejection letters. It was November 10, 2024 when this message show up in my email.

“I am a violinist and had to prepare a presentation about Vivaldi`s Four seasons. I just can not believe the time and the effort that you put in these paintings. I have no words to say, other than how amazing these paintings were and understanding music in such a way is like a blessing. I am so sorry for the amount of followers you got. Nowadays people unfortunately do not understand the value of these things. But since I came across your page, I will tell all my students to watch your videos and learn some perspective through your amazing artworks! Thank you for not giving up on music, all of your works are so rare and valuable!!” ________YouTube

Here is the rest of the story of Everything I do:

The cover music for the music box: Everything I Do.

I should only post a 30 second snippet of the cover music like on my website, but this blog exists to preserve this journey, and the music plays a major part in this story.

Scott Von Holzen