Everything I do next to the previous project,The Scientist
Everything I do, the music box artwork pictured above, displays a new design direction for this art. This change came about from looking back at how the artist Mark Rothko handled color. I have a large and expensive book of Mark Rothko works on canvas. Picture below, on the right, is the 2nd to last image from that book. I believe it is this image that also inspired the backgrounds of the great artwork’s Hallelujah and Thunder road. Both hang in the studio, pictured below.
Besides taking another look at Rothko’s use of color, I also turned my canvas to match his vertical style. It turned out to be a simple move from a horizontal look to a vertical look. I will arrange the music in three sections across the canvas, from the top left to the bottom right.
The image I like is on the right. One of Mark Rothko‘s last paintings.
Everything I do earlier image side view.
I like the idea of wall mounted artworks extending out from the wall as if reaching out to the viewer. This one canvas turns out to be over 6 inches out from that wall. There is a reason for this.
Typically, I mount the speakers in the canvases, which projects the sound from out the back, bouncing off the wall. I hear the stereo effects in larger works, but with smaller artworks, the speakers are close together, and although the music is fine, the stereo separation suffers. This artwork is 30 inches wide and too narrow to accommodate a decent stereo sound. That is why I mounted the speakers on the sides of that canvas. This pushes the sound out in two different directions, a separation of 180 degrees. I expect to experience a larger stereo soundstage (definition). Of course by accommodating side mounted 5×7 inches speakers, I also gave myself a practical reason for extending the canvas further out from the wall.
Artist’s Studio wall hanging of the brown colored Thunder Road 2011 next to the blue Hallelujah 2011.
I wanted to do an update version of the Rothko painting I found in his book. That is why I choose a 30 by 40 inches canvas. And I really wanted to go with his horizontal rectangles in a new way but comparable to what I did in the early years, for example, Canon In D from 2009. But after some attempts to update Rothko’s idea, I thought what I was trying to accomplish failed. Wisely, for this project, I went with a mix of blues for this work and will attempt a Rothko update another time.
Bryan Adams – (Everything I Do) I Do It For You, Live At The Royal Albert Hall
I never was a Brian Adams fan, but this music is one of his best, with its exceptional arrangement, strong lyrics and a good melody.
The official video of What Have I Done……their 1987 hit. The colors and Dusty Springfield’s hair style are so the eighties.
This 2022 video below gave me a much better idea of the colors the Pet Shop boys like to use.
What Have I Done…… live performance in Parque.
This is how I came about choosing this Pet Shop Boys song as my next project. It was on a walk that this Pet Shop Boys song caught my ear. I think for this project it was the lyrics especially, the repeating of “How I’m gon’na get through,” that are the “sampled” lyrics displayed on the artwork. In that moment those words were summarizing my directional concern for this art. To confirm my pick, I check online for the sheet music at MusicNotes and purchase it. I could cobble together the sheet music with the help of the music’s free preview sheet music, but still there would be a lot of guessing and certainly respect for the accuracy of music is important to me. Even more important, is the value of my time. For a few bucks I own my cover music guide I can trust. After completing the project, I then purchase a cover music license. I am required a minimum of 25 music boxes. That is fine, even though there is only one music box, and I do not know if I will ever need a license, or any of the 40 plus licenses I have already purchased. It is not my music. I am doing what I feel is respectful and adequate for now.
What have I done….. first image
Here is a pre-release rough draft of this music box’s eventual cover music
The Pet Shop Boys videos have a lot of pink tones, and other mostly pastel colors in their performances. I choose a combination of colors from the videos that differed from previous recent works and went to work.
__________________________________________
I forgot to post, so now I have added an update.
“What Have I done,” near finished
This is the finished image I need only to go over its details to make sure I have completed what I needed to and then sign and date this work. I will post a video and the updated cover music on this next blog entry.
______________________________
I have made a small but important change in my thinking and direction: I need to document my depiction of sheet music beams.
The image below is a typical of sheet music. The “beam” which is the wide bar that connects, in this example, two notes from sheet music.
Above is the typical example of the look of my beams I have used for many years.
Now above, and below, are my its-about-time whatever beams, including a double.
Earlier this year, I started experimenting with different beam shapes out of creative boredom. In this work, I finally abandoned the idea that all beams should look similar. The only rule in my art is to capture the flow of the music visually. While this beam change seems simple, my respect for the music and the importance of sheet music has made it difficult, and slow going, to fully let go of tradition. Below, I summarize that change.
The image above is an example of my mentor Christy Skuban wooden artworks, in which most pieces of every artwork she ever created were built from scrap wood other artists have given her.Previously, I would discard my wood scraps once the container was full. My mindset has now changed from hoarding scraps to actively incorporating them into my artwork. Thank you Christy.
____________________________
Finally, I need to document a short story about a meeting I had concerning the future of the art group EmptyWallsArt, that I help form.
After a surprising number of months I had an eventual coffee meeting with Jeff to discuss the future of our art group, EmptyWallsArt. Before our membership meeting I wanted to put together some kind of joint understanding. We needed to come up with something about the future of the group after the sudden passing of our co-founder, Christy Skuban, in January 2024.
Christy was the heart of our group. She managed a gallery, displaying and selling all the members art. Even though my works didn’t sell and she eventually asked me removed them, I still believed in her. Christy was a relentless marketer, always seeking exposure for the group. Now, with her gone, Jeff had no other choice but to become the group’s reluctant leader. But his loyalty, like the rest of the group, was to Christy and not so much to EmptyWallsArt. That is the reluctant part. Tom Petty’s lyrics best summarize the group’s current thinking, “Their A&R man said, ‘I don’t hear a single,” without her.
During my coffee meeting with Jeff, I suggested that to keep EWA going, we might need to replace members and consider admitting 2D artists—a significant shift from our original focus on 3D art. This idea arose from the limited local 3D wall art talent, which became clear to Christy and me at our last group show when we struggled to meet the requirement of adding three local 3D artists. Jeff seemed both surprised and somewhat reassured by the suggestion.
My surprise came when Jeff expressed excitement about a cruise line that buys and rotates art on their ships. I responded, “People on a cruise aren’t there for the art.” All that did was reinforce our differing perspectives on art. Thus began the beginning of the end of a conversation that soon dwindled off to what’s left to say. And, as usual with Jeff and our meetings, he had somewhere else to be. He got up, turned his attention to someone at the next table, and I got up and left.
On September 10th, the group will meet to decide EWA’s future. Jeff and I agree, this could be the end, with several members possibly quitting. Full membership participation or not, with the remaining members, will determine the future of EWA. Even if EmptyWallsArt ends as a membership, I am going to maintain the domain name, just in case. Once again, I regret my difficult position, and my hopes for this group’s future being summed up in Tom Petty’s lyrics: “Into the great wide open, under those skies of blue, out in the great wide open, a rebel without a clue.”
Scott Von Holzen
(This is this artist’s 775 Post, which first posted in January 2010)
This first image of The Logical Song shows a mix of colors I saw watching a live performance.
Live performance of The Logical Song
I do not remember this song, released in 1979, or even the group Supertramp. Checking my Liked Songs playlist on Spotify (now at 2,353) I see that over the years I added four Supertramp songs: Bloody Well Right, Goodbye Stranger, Give A Little Bit and Take the Long Way Home. I added The Logical Song four days ago. In my search for my next project what probably caught my ear was this music’s chorus heard on a random Spotify playlist on the computer.
The verses for this music are mostly 8th notes. A big change occurs in the chorus. The music flow switches, adding half and whole notes that slow the music. Right away, my thinking was that those longer notes would work nice with string instruments, adding depth, volume change, and drama all under a minute. Since I am continuing with these small size projects (abhorring the thought of doing any major work) finding music that I can do a shorten cover, that is an easy listen, has nice lyrics, and is not music from the sixties, makes for a good choice for a mini project.
