The title of this artwork is, It’s So Hard to Say Goodbye. This artwork, to my surprise, has gone from a 2015 closure piece to an experimental artwork. For the first time all the music you see in the above image I made from painted wood that rises at different levels above the background. I did not expect to be using this many pieces of wood in this work, but as the artwork progress using more wood seemed like the right thing to do. So that you can get a better feel for the why I used all of this wood here is another image that is an angled shot.
I wanted this artwork to interrupt this sentence from the music, “And I’ll take with me the memories to be my sunshine after the rain.” That is the part of this music that sums up my feeling to all the events that occurred in 2015. What I did not want to have is a long painting. This work measures over 52 inches in length, and at this time, I wanted to keep my artworks around that four-foot range. In order to make that happen I discovered that I needed to find some way to compress the music flow. I could not do that on either end canvases, because that is where the words will appear, and I considered the two end canvases the most important, with plenty of interest so I wanted their look to be well done. That then left the middle of this music, where the interest is even more plentiful, but lack words. By switching to the little squares, instead of the circle to represent the music, I am treating this area of the artwork in a less formal way. The results are that I am maintaining the flow, and general look, but by simplifying and closing up the spacing in this middle canvas, I have saved space and time to complete.
Next up I have some final pieces of musical interest to add either in paint or in wood. Since I want to get this work done so I can start my 2016 paintings, I will have to make my decisions, probably based on what can be done that will have a nice look, but does not consume a lot of time to complete. This artwork has a start date of December 13th, so I can see why I am getting a little antsy to bring it to a close.
Scott Von Holzen
aRT iN mUSIC 