Tag: Music

S_V_H Miles Davis, So What, image 2

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

The idea for the style of this artwork comes from Jackson Pollock’s painting Blue Poles. His painting is about 6 feet in height and about 16 feet in length. By using the look of Pollock’s blue poles I have finally broken the from-the-beginning tradition of always having perfect vertical shafts for my music.

Jackson Pollock

 

There are eight blue poles in the Jackson work, but So What has eighteen notes.  To make the number differences work I made my first and last notes vertical.  I then used two notes to match the angle of each blue pole.  I did stay consistent with the back-en-forth motion of his poles, even through their rhythmic look I thought I could improve on.

The effect of not keeping everything vertical was to enhance the sense of motion across the canvas.  That technique may have possibilities beyond motion attempts that I have used in the past.  I knew this painting years ago.  I should have tried Pollock’s idea then, although today’s timing could be better. Lately, I have found ways to loosen up many of my self-inflicted restrictions, that I hung to from the past. Finally, I even did some experimenting, once again,  with splattering paint.  I found out, once again,  that for now, that technique does not work. Baby steps.

 

Scott Von Holzen

 

 

S_V_H SO What image 1

Published on by Scott Von Holzen

This is my 2017 Birthday painting:  So What. This artwork theme comes from Miles Davis album Kind of Blue. I have linked a live version of this music.  This early television video of Miles Davis is strangely different from how it would be done now. Today, everything needs to be short, not so deep,  and in the moment to not lose the audience’s attention.  Back in 1959 that moment lasted for over nine minutes:

So What,  consists of 9 canvases for a length 70 inches.   The  largest canvases are only eight by ten inches.  I am looking at this artwork to be a directional changed.  Once again, I am on the move with the inspiration being Jackson Pollock and his abstract painting Blue Poles.

Scott Von Holzen

S_V_H My Back Pages Final Image

Published on by Scott Von Holzen2 Comments
Two Canvas with Aluminum and wood, 26 1/4 x 17 1/4

My Back Pages is one of the smallest of my artworks, under thirty inches in length, and has the least amount of music. Since there is so little music present there is also little in visual interest.  That is the reason I decided to go further with my use of words in this artwork. I took what I learned from Lovesong, and in a free poetic style I brought words together from different parts of the music.  I deliberately chose words that have meanings far beyond their appearance in the song, and then I placed them randomly.  It is the words that connect this artwork.  I think this trend will continue because it worked so well in My Back Pages and Lovesong.

I cannot but wonder what would have happened with my art if I had not stop painting in the early 1980’s?  Back than I had no connections to the local artist community, and few opportunities to show. Basically, when I started I had a dream,  a few art books, and a spare bedroom to paint in.  From 1975 to the early 1980s I painted a number of portraits mostly from photographs of family and friends. I than ran out of subject matter, and along with the demands of earning a living my artist ambitions faded. In reality an artist prodigy I was never. In truth the drive and the limits of painting portraits,  and the lack of interest in any other alternate artistic genre,  brought it all to an end.   That was back than: “Ah, but I was so much older than, I’m younger than that now.”  Twenty-five years later I found a vision and a genre, music, that offers endless possibilities. The internet gives me the start at building connections, and I now have the time and the money to pursue  it all.  The biggest difference from than to now is that I  finally have the knowledge, the drive, the purpose, the goal, and the ambition to see all this through. As I have said before I am in it for the long run, and I hope you as the reader find this pursuit interesting enough to check in once in a while.

Scott Von Holzen