Tag: Music

S_V_H Your Song image 3

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is the last stage of my scratching technique, when I draw in the words. I dislike art that includes words to enhance the works’ lack of purpose. My words go with the music. They are there because they belong. They exist to add interest and offer the viewer the option to choose their meanings. I have always applied words in that way. If the music has words, I like to use them. I see them as decorative graffiti. I then scratch through them. This technique downplays their value and covers my print writing, which is awful, but important. My hand writing connects me to the artwork, not unlike Jackson’s Pollack hand print on his canvas.

I should mention how I choose the colors for this artwork. The background color ideas that appear through the scratching, and the top white layer of white, come from Elton John’s outfit in an early video of Your Song. The silver I used for the words I found in the glasses of Lady Gaga’s performance of Your Song at the 2018 Grammies.

Elton John’s live 1971 performance of Your Song.

This is a technical note: This image above is after the scratching was done. Issues are continuing with getting a clean scratching across the entire canvases. The top layer, in places, is rubbery. That means the pallet knife tears the top layer instead of clean ripping it away. This issue could be caused by the thickness of the paint, or that it needs longer drying time. The solution is further complicated by the rubbery issue not being consistent across the canvas. What is known is that as the days pass, the top layer firms up on the artworks and my test canvases. Letting the top layer of paint cure for maybe weeks, with testing, could be an answer, except that does not work for me. I live with each of these projects until finished. Only when completed do I start the search for the next music project. Hum, so the choice is?

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H Gallery pickup comments

Published on by Scott Von Holzen
Top Beethoven’s 5th then Mozart’s serenade No. 13

This was what I saw when visited the Gallery where I have had artworks on and off displayed for sale since 2017.

The picture I took when I was about to leave. The Music teacher was on the left and a candy store on the right. Both are now gone along with my artworks.

May 2018
March 2019
November 2017

I took part in two one day shows at the Gallery back in my old Art Fair days. I was asked and had a month long show then in March 2018. When that show was finished, the Gallery manager, Christy (a loyal supporter) hung on to a few of my works. Eventually, she gave me a more permanent spot to hang next door to a music teacher in March 2019. Later, because nothing sold, I removed and hung the wonderful artwork, Africa. That also did not sell. I replaced Africa with two of my smallest works, a little Beethoven and a Mozart piece. I priced them to sell even though the Gallery would take 40 percent of the sale. They did not.

Christy and I talked and neither of us had any honest ideas about why this art did not sell. She mentioned another gallery that had new owners. I told her I would be embarrassed asking them to sell this art when years have gone by at her gallery with any offers. I told her I would be back when the circle comes around. She said hopefully to display this art again. So that is what it is.

Scott von Holzen

(I searched my bog entries, but I found nothing about the story told to me by the music teacher when I stopped in to replace Africa. He said he was sad to see it go, for his students would press the play button on Africa to let him know they had arrived. He said he would post a picture of Africa on his Facebook page. Maybe some day I will remember or find out who he was and post that image)

S_V_H Your Song first image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is the first image of Your Song, my next music box, featuring the music of Elton John Your Song. Like all of my first images, this one will disappear under a top coat of paint. Only then will it be reviewed when I scratch off parts of that top layer of paint. As I have said, this bottom layer I can paint anything a prodigy would paint. I choose to go with narrow and vertical colors because my scratching is strongly horizontal. This creates a pleasant flow of colors across the canvas.

With this project I am gong anti Robert Frost and diverging down a road most traveled. I have a large amount of stretched canvases that have been stacked away for years. Lately my music boxes have used loose canvas attached to an aluminum frame, and connected to stretched canvas speaker boxes. This work uses all stretched canvases, with two 24 inch by 30 inch, and two 8 inch by 24 inch canvases. I may separate the two 30 inch center canvases with angled aluminum once I calculate the length of the music to be attached.

I have a large stack of stretched canvases. I also was tired of handling loose canvas, which requires a frame to attach to with magnets. When finished assembling my loose canvas artworks, they resembled my stretched canvases works, without the stretching part. The loose canvas style advantage is I can create custom sizes. With bought stretched canvas I have many size choices, but not all sizes are available. Because I do not have the time to build custom frames and then stretch canvases, I ended up purchasing many stretched canvases sizes as a workaround. That ended up, regrettably, with me storing an extensive collection of canvas that can sit for years, and taking even more years to use up.

The final rough draft of this music box cover of Your Song.

Back in my college days, I bought albums, with little monies to spare, at the local record shop on State Street. While in college, I probably first heard of Elton John listening to Your Song on the radio. I did not think that much of him to buy the album.

The record albums that I bought (in no particular order) that come to mind around the late sixties and early 1970s of my college years, are the great album Déjà vu – Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young 1970 release, Mad Dogs & Englishmen – Joe Cocker 1970, The Who – Live at Leeds 1970, and probably Tommy 1969 release, Cream Wheels of Fire 1968 release, also in my first year 1968 in the dorm when I heard Laura Nyro’s album Eli and the Thirteenth Confession. My top favorite record in the dorm was Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears 1968, Switched-on Bach 1968 release, The Beatles – White Album November 1968, Woodstock 1970, Sweet Baby James – James Taylor release 1970, Pearl – Janis Joplin 1971 release date that was the last album I bought before college graduation, and my motorcycle trip out west. I also bought a great album Bridge Over Troubled Water – Simon and Garfunkel 1970 release, that was given to me just before graduation, just out of college Barbra Joan Streisand – Barbra Streisand 1971, and finally Tumbleweed Connection – Elton John 1970 release date while still in college.

I finally bought into Elton John with his record album Tumbleweed Connection because it appealed to what I will call my version of country classic rock, placing it right up there, with Déjà vu. Great songs from beginning to end. This was followed by my favorite from beginning to end Elton John’s album, Madman Across the Water.

All those albums and more that I have forgotten connect all together to me musically. That is why I still play Elton John’s music on Spotify, and probably why Your Song was an easy pick to paint, especially after watching Lady Gaga’s revival at the 2018 Grammies.

Scott Von Holzen