Here is the first image of the commission work to create an artwork based on the Chevrolet, Like a Rock commercial, that ran from 1991 to 2004.
The client wanted to include the Chevrolet logo, and as you can see I have done that. It is amazing that my experiences of using aluminum and canvas to create some pretty good Artworks, would be put to use to make a reasonable facsimile of an automobile nameplate. Fascinating.
Scott Von Holzen
This is Beethoven’s Für Elise that is part of a Series of Mini artworks that includes works by Chopin, Bach, and Mozart. These Series of mini-Artworks, priced between $200 to $400 dollars, are for the local art market and their size and convenience might work for Art Fairs. But, my take is that most Art Fairs are held outside, at best are quality Craft Fairs with high expenses, have unpredictable weather, lots of time-wasting lookers, and few buyers for this style of Art, that is totally out-of-place in a 40 dollar yard art craft environment. That means this year I will be searching for compatible indoor places to market these mini artworks.
Für Elise is place inside a 18 x 24 inch shadow box that I have removed the glass.
All of these Mini-Artworks are part of name Series. This means for the mini-artwork Series, Für Elise, they are each signed, dated, and numbered on the back. This Für Elise is obviously No. 1 in this Series. Right now I have two other Beethoven’s in Series. They are Beethoven 5th Symphony, and my latest Beethoven, Ode to Joy.
Ode to Joy artwork will be in a pop-up Gallery show sponsored by ArtFly the last Saturday in February. The show’s theme is audience participation works. In order to make my art interactive I added the music the artwork represents.
I am not thinking of adding music to all these mini works or my major Artworks. The music for Ode to Joy and the two other works in the Art Fly show came from Wikipedia’s List of free Sound Files.
Für Elise and Ode to Joy are both the largest in these Series of mini artworks. They are time-consuming so they have an introductory price of $349. Right now I am trying to see if this area has a market for these larger beauties or even the smaller lower price mini-artworks.
Scott Von Holzen
Time to Say Goodbye is finished and looking at it I think this little painting is kinda adorable. I see that in the first time stripping of the music and the overall use of black and white I saw in the videos. To contrast colors I painted the canvases a light rose to represent Sarah Brightman’s and her performance. I than connected the music with the canvas with the gold and bronze accents and the added vertical magenta stripping on the music.
I choose to paint music from my lifetime, for different reasons. For example I like to paint music that I think is exceptional, or that I grow up enjoying over the years. I also like to paint music knowing other artist have done cover versions. That tells me the music has wider appeal. The first time I heard Time to say Goodbye, I thought it was beautifully sung in Italian, but it was the title sung in English that caught my interest. A later surprise was to find out that Donna Summer , “The queen of disco,” also covered the music as I Will Go With You, in 1999. The Italian title of this music is actually Con Te Partirò. Those words, and the words I chose for the painting, te partirò con te, both translate to I’ll Leave with You.
I am happy to be moving along to my next project. I did not build a full aluminum frame around this artwork and that created a lot of extra work to properly support the music on both ends. I wanted to experiment, but actually wasted a lot of time for such a small work. I do like placing my words on pieces of wood for this allows me to place them wherever it works visually with the artwork. This artwork completes this word evolution that started in 2014, when I began to not break up my words into their syllables, or at less stop using those silly little dash lines in between. Good riddance, for I want this artistic style, that started out with the idea of painting sheet music to eventually reach a creative level that has nothing in common with sheet music.
I have no idea what project I will start next. I know only that I plan on doing a larger work, probably not Classical in style.
Scott Von Holzen
aRT iN mUSIC