Length 7 feet.
The following is an early draft of this artwork’s soundtrack. The flow between concertos is lacking, but each season includes a short intro, a main verse, and an outro to achieve a complete track. I have my template to build the artwork and the cover music.
I have spent a lot of valuable time planning and making and painting the wooden parts for each season, and putting them all together, as one artwork. I am already feeling the strain of time and effort. Because so much of this project is do, do, do, do a step, then repeat, repeat, repeat, repeat, this has taken it toll on my drive, appreciation for what I am trying to accomplish, and for what reason. The only time saved should be the single stereo system. If I can sync the lighting with the music, to all flow together.
My first thought for the new project was to create a nice short, even soundtrack from the four concertos, and then “sample” each season on the canvases. That is my current practice. Instead, after some thought and testing if practical, I decided against sampling the cover music. Instead, I picked 8 measures from Spring, 5 from Summer, 4 from Fall, and 5 from Winter as my cover music. I then made and found the room on six canvases to display the entire soundtrack. Looking at the current image, what I see is a 3D version of the artwork’s sheet music.
It is nice that the music opens with the Spring concerto, one well-known classic melody. From there on I am less confident of any other connection by causal listeners. What makes this cover harder to compose is setting a limit to less than 90 seconds (My limit to a viewer’s attention span) That restriction then made it possible to fit all the music onto to the artwork.
This is going to be the last project from my short-lived EmptyWallsArt group with three members gone already. It is also being hung in March at a wine and art bar downtown. How important is this show for this art? I would say it has little to no value. The reason I went along was loyalty to the group and the manager of the wine bar insisting on a show theme. I have always thought that building an exhibition on a theme was a great way to bring this apathetic group together. But, all the creative genesis at the table had nothing good to suggest. Luckily, out of desperation, the easy theme choice that found unanimous support was the four seasons. Thanks to Vivaldi, that theme I thought would be an interesting challenge.
Photography____________________________________________
When I booted up my aging Windows 10 computer, there appeared an image of two dolphins jumping out of the water, seen from the water, looking to the shoreline that looked like a wooden campground. The first thing I thought was as a photograph, this image was fake.
For many years before I returned to painting I was a dedicated follower of Ansel Adams and his Zone system. I was a decent photographer but only functional in the darkroom, no matter how much money I spent on equipment, and no matter the hundreds of hours spent in the dark. Of course I had my successes, but over many years and attempts, I never achieve my goal in photography, becoming the next Ansel Adams.
What made Ansel, Weston, Stieglitz, Frank, Winogrand, Steichen, Friedlander, and many more that inspired my camera grip, was they all knew how to capture the moment. That is the essence of what all great photography excelled at. That is until Adobe Photoshop became a much more powerful alternative. Are the Dolphins fake? I don’t know, but it is the year 2025, and the current Photoshop release is 25.12.1. The ability to change an image has reached a near peak in abilities from when I first started learning and following Photoshop using version two, has gradually, then quickly, allowed me to change with the times.
I am all in on Photoshop and digital photography, replacing all the tedium, expense and time I spent years ago in the dark to create a single good photographic image. How much of today’s photography is actually real? I do not know. But I have my doubts about any unknown image I see on my computer screen. I believe that the images which once defined photography as great will survive. But Photoshop’s skill at altering an image has lowered today’s photography to the status of a tired outdoor billboard, on a 6.5 inch screen. I will always be grateful to all the great darkroom photographers from the past that inspired me to learn their techniques to manipulate, to enhance contrast, and getting there to be there at just the right moment. Regardless of what is and what is not, I’ve moved on. No matter if the Dolphins are real or not, there they are flying in the air in a photo that appears to be in the moment. Despite this, the heart of this photographer, once devoted to capturing the thrill of the moment on film, now feels photography to be a self rewarding, fleeting indulgence. Today’s photography is much too much like enjoying a donut, only to regret it later.
“Where have you gone, Joe DiMaggio?
A nation turns its lonely eyes to you, ….
What’s that you say, Mrs. Robinson
‘Ansel’ has left and gone away….”
Scott Von Holzen
aRT iN mUSIC 