The Waterplant, mixed media on canvas by Susan T. Martin(sold)
The torment of Immobility
Riding a wave, tall as a mountain, I rush headlong thru my day
One project done, the next begun:
All clarity-no haze.
The transition came, I know not when(wound up on my butt again)
I wandered thru today amazed:
No clarity-just dazed.
When does it happen/Why?
I did not cause it/Did I?
Now huddled under an ocean of covers, immobilized for days
Not project done, not even begun
Just futility-today.
Where do I go to/Why?
I do not cause it/Do I?
I rode a wave, tall as a mountain, rushed headlong into here
The vast Empty, the foreboding, feeling death is very near,
The quiet is not tranquil, the peace turns into fear
Will I find the will to struggle, will my vision ever clear?
I would not wish this on an enemy, nor even onto me
This terrible stuckness, it's inevitability
Knowing it will leave doesn't help it go
The pros say that will, but they don't really know
I will find my meds, somehow take a few
Sleep a dreamless sleep, tomorrow start anew
Hope against all hope, stagnation soon will end
I will be on top to ride that wave again.
Due to the pandemic INSIGHTS IV was pushed forward to October 2021, again held at the Zolla Liebermann Gallery in Chicago. I wish I could have been there !!
Oh, my. I didn’t think knowing her cause of death would hurt so much. I’ve tried not to get swept up in the frenzy of pre-judgment, the swirling sea of speculation and conclusion-jumping. I have kept my distance from the personal pain of her family, her loved ones…even the pain of onlookers and hang-arounds.
It still hurts. Even though I see some truth in certain societal prejudice creating a higher level of media interest, still it hurts. For me, I think it lies in her openness, naiveté. So schoolgirl-ish, eager to please. Happy. Blonde. Hopeful.
That is not her fault. And it doesn’t do to focus on the social imbalance, not right now. Some may disagree, and stand on soap boxes and toot their messages throughout the land. That’s for them.
For me? It hurts. Like a baby bird fallen from it’s nest, limp in my hands, I want to fix her. I want to swaddle her in my favorite fuzzy blanket, hold her like Mary holding Jesus. I did not know you, Gabby, but I know you. e
You were me, at 17, drinking beer with my friends and my new boyfriend. When, in an instant a fist struck my laughing, open mouth. Spitting beer and a piece of tooth out behind a tree where he had marched me, saying I would ‘never disrespect him in public’.
Believing we needed to be in a relationship to be ‘whole’ , no matter the alarm bells, no matter the danger. Putting on masks to hide the pain, trying to become whatever the abuser wanted. Putting up with a slap, a punch, being berated and belittled and not telling a soul…buying into a ‘romantic’ dream turned nightmare…my art reflects all these processes as I lived thru it; so many others don’t.
I closed my laughing mouth that day, at least when it came to telling anyone about abuse. I could talk about “anything” to family, anythingbut THAT. And, for me a huge part of the silence was shame and embarrassment. How could I admit I got it so wrong? The family wanted the future marriage with all the trappings, wedding albums, grandkids. They bought him Christmas gifts, let him sleep in their home, share the holiday table. Giggling with Mom and friends over future plans, seeing the romantic movies, going to the weddings of siblings and friends. So much family pride at a daughter married off…
I remember my brother glimpsing him treating me bad, some rude remark made on the side, my face burning with embarrassment: He sat me down the next day, “Don’t go with him, he’s no good…” But Dad would have a Scotch on the porch with my abuser, making jokes about ‘the womenfolk” and “keeping a firm hand”, the knowing glances and cigars puffed…WAIT!! I wanted to scream. I don’t want this anymore!!
But the abuser promised behind closed doors : ” If I can’t have you nobody can…”
My heart cries out for the loss of a beautiful life, for the suffering of her family, and empathy for millions of others who have had to suffer and/or die at the hands of their mate…the person closest to them. I hope that others who are in violent relationships can tell a trusted confidante, find a safe exit and save their lives. Better yet, learn to treasure the life they have, value themselves without settling for a boyfriend of girlfriend who hurts them(mentally or physically). Take Gabby’s tale to heart, and live!!
I’m sorry, I just had to ‘go’ there. It is true. I am under compulsion to express myself creatively. It’s 5am again, sleep fled from me ten years ago (at least!), and I am drawing sheep instead of counting them. In my other journal I describe my physical pain-it is at a new level of cruelty. I lie on my bed and moan, no amount of useless meds suffice to touch this beast.
Is that why the faces all show this somehow tense+sad expression? Wistful longing for that elusive loosening of the bonds? Perhaps. I try to draw them less like who I see in the mirror, more like I imagine my ancestors to be. Those “other” Keel’s, in the ‘colored’ graveyard. The ones listed before 1865 as slaves who seem to disappear into thin air on the ‘new and improved’ census after the war. Mysteriously reappearing as ‘household servants’-female, age 10 years. Female, age 17…
I thought it was a lark, looking up ‘my people’…amazed that my dirt poor, shoeless, hog farming grandpas had come from England a few generations prior, settling in “The Colony” , with names prefixed with titles like Lord and Sir.
Such noble men and women whose blue blood runs thru my veins. How naive I was, never considered the blood on their hands. Native peoples whose entire lines and tribes now blotted out of existence, as their lands got hacked and sawed and planted with Tobacco, and cotton.
I always thought how beautiful brown skin is, and wished I were a black or brown skinned girl. Now I cry because I may actually be here because a child was hurt, a young woman stolen from every semblance of loving kindnes… Ah well…
I color an imaginary scenario with so much room for uncertainty… I will just let it be for now.
The Feeling one gets when successfully submitting their hard work into an event. The finality of it. That deep exhale when a deadline is met, that chapter closed.
Knowing you did your level best to create something worthy of hanging in an Art gallery, in a beautiful home. Knowing that gives me joy,
All around me , I see the memories. The whispers of my love, echoed through the years. Images of the place we lived, when all of us were there. Those times are over now, and isolation makes the distance so much greater. But still the tendrils curl from the past and steal under the door frames, thru the cracks in the walls, and deep into my heart.
In waking moments, bleary eyed, I try to grasp the essence of you as the dream recedes. Your scent lingers in my nostrils; recedes like the white foam of a wave vanishing into the eager sand. Why must the imprint flee-so rapidly? I had your housecoat in a Kipling, sealed like a time capsule. I would unzip it just enough to stuff my face in the hole, wuffling your smell for a moment; your baby again.
Eventually the Mommy smell dissipated in spite of me only wuffling for a second every month or so. Even this part of you had to go, leaving me only your favorite T Shirt (which I only put on once in the past 11 years only to whisk it off and ceremoniously nestle it back into its shrine in my pajama drawer.) It’s the one with the tiny writing decoration: Read a book. In your favorite place. By a window. Under a tree…ad infinitum in line after line of script. Script I can recite as if it were an incantation to bring you back to me.
It can’t. It won’t. It doesn’t. I still won’t wear it. It has your name hand written on the inside of the neck hem. I wrote it there before brining it to the rehab with your other clothes and toiletries. You looked so young, so childlike on the big bed in that old rehab. Giggling because you had the room to yourself. The first time in 50-odd years of oppressive marriage that you slept in a room alone. A little girl, playing house.
My heart hurts, but I have that image of you, right now, to comfort me. My eyes are heavy; I will lie down, curling my body around this memory…
I love etching. I haven’t done a “real” etching in about 40 years; since high school. We had a brand new state-of-the-art printing press. It had been installed in 1978 and here I was, a couple years later in advanced art classes with the finest teacher I ever had, Mr. O’Hara. At the time I did not think I liked the man, he was always on my case, pushing me and prodding me to expand my horizons. All I wanted to do was get high and draw my trippy burnout monsters. These were the days of Frank Frazetta and Heavy Metal The Movie; my dreams were filled with animation and album covers. But Mr. O’Hara had this printing press. And he intended to make me use it.
First it was wood cuts. Hmmmm…This was pretty cool. One block, lots of options, different colors, placements and copies! Prints everywhere! I had written a poem about a nuclear holocaust, Mr. O’Hara had us make a book…I was impressed, and so were my Peers and parents. Which was unbelievable, they never turned the TV off long enough to know what color my hair was any given month. (It was many different colors, but not like today. We just had blue/black and red and blonde… I tried them all.) Getting back to the printing press, my curiosity was really piqued. Then we did a lino cut…again, very cool. I was into it now. Then he gave us some history and some homework.
Etching. Renaissance. Rembrandt. Etching. Albrecht Durer. Zinc Plate etchings. I was enthralled: Oh the detail. The crazy details. It was better than smoking dope! I am so grateful today to have had the chance to be taught by Mr. O’Hara. I have often wished I could contact him and thank him for pushing me. He really cared, and I will always be indebted to him for seeing who I could be.
yesterday’s piece: Too Soon to Yo Mama (Tucson to Yuma
These pieces aren’t etchings, they are oil pastel sgrafitto. To me, though, they have the feel of etchings. The tiny lines, intricate detail. Not like a finished etching, but those wonderful moments when you are scratching the eensy-weensy picture onto the plate. I have even gone so far as to ‘etch’ a lamp globe and a mannequin in the past few years! Oh, the long lost love of mine!!
Out of the Gutter Art 
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