There are months when I sail along. Then there was April. Ouch.
Work in Progress: The Old Grove
Bipolar Disorder has a whole bag of tricks it can put to use on me, it used all of them. I let myself believe I didn’t need more than 3 hours sleep per night. In fact, thot I, I don’t need to sleep for 72 hours…48 is just too easy!
Spring on the Gulf
I’m so glad I don’t have schizophrenia. I deal with enough psychosis from insomnia.
KODAK Digital Still Camera
I hope to be creating more very soon. Right now I’m working on a little 16×20 landscape , and at the end of April I had entered 5 works into INSIGHTS V. So I’m kind of easing in to new ideas. Let it flow, baby!
The coast seems clear, dare I step out-into the light? I think I must, after my last cryptic and elusive post. Nothing bad happened, artistically. I was uplifted, encouraged, validated. People needed to hear from me, needed to hear how a girl with so many odds stacked against her from the “git go”, plus the things I had piled on myself-how I had teetered at the edge of the abyss…and made it back to tell the tale.
Many are grieving themselves, their pain written in their beautiful eyes, on expertly made up, flawless faces. They searched mine, looking for an answer- “Why.” Why? Why? Had they missed the signs? Were there signs? Hadn’t they done everything, sought the right help, paid the right physician, listened closely in the therapy sessions?
I could only tell them that there was no rhyme or reason as to why I am here and their daughter is not. They did nothing to cause Bipolar Disorder. It doesn’t come from privilege, nor does it spring from want. It isn’t kept at bay with hugs or attention, nor is it fueled by neglect. At least none of this was true in my case.
My family was dysfunctional, true. So were many of my peers families. So are nearly all families. But my friends had not led lives fueled by a burning need to shoot across the sky in a blaze of purple confetti. Or to try to beat the Guiness world record for consecutive shots of 100 proof vodka. Nor had they experienced the kind of despair that left them lost and disheveled in their bathrobe when they were supposed to be graduating college or accepting an award.
I wanted to tell them they did more than my family ever did. That my Mom was the only one who believed that I did not want to be a train wreck. She asked the questions, walked thru broken glass for me and held my hand when the meds weren’t working. But ultimately she couldn’t divert the catastrophe either.
I’m trying to tell you it’s not your fault. Grieve the loss, but don’t blame yourself. I know when the darkness comes over me, it’s no one’s fault. And if I hold on really tight, it will pass. I white-knuckle it many nights, but a new day always dawns.
One day in the future there will not be any mental illness, or suicide. Until then just love your Bipolar person, hold on tight when you can and bask in their amazing glow. Be there when their sparklers fizzle and love them back to their feet. When they jump in their little rocket ships to the moon, put on a brave smile and wish them all the love in the world…till you meet again.
And if you are Bipolar and you are feeling alone, please reach out if you can. Know that you are worthy of love and that this darkness will eventually pass. You will be back on top again. The rain will stop. The sun will shine, the pain will ease. Hold on for dear life my friend.
Woo Hoo ! I am an artist WHIRLWIND again! Hang on, cause art is flowing out of me in a torrent, and I need more hands. I am happy to be out of “funk town” for a while! I entered six shows in the past month and now have 5 paintings accepted into these shows . Four of the five shows. I can’t believe how things snowball. The piece above is a Work in Progress, one of my Surrealist pieces, with a working title of Angry Birds, a little pun on the silly game people play on their devices. I’m rethinking that right now, I may put people off by that. But who cares if I like it, right? Naming Art is the Artist’s privelege. Kind of like children; you made it, you name it! And here’s a fun little twist…how many Birds do you see?
I painted what I believe to be my best piece as far as figurative art, it’s an acrylic mixed media piece which is a statement piece about justice and human trafficking…It is named “Stuck in Traffic (Framed) and I will post it, and the one mentioned above as soon as I sign them in a few minutes here… Be patient, I had to lie down for a minute. I decided a while back that I must sign my work before I post it online… Silly, really, you can’t stop the thievery no matter what you do, if you decide to post your art online. I recently read a piece considering the benefit vs risk of putting your art online. If you decide not to you are missing out on reaching millions of people, perhaps billions. If you want to sell your art, and/or share it with an audience, then the risk is one you must take. Unless of course you are going to let it spead just by word of mouth. Then it would take 100 years telling 5 people a day to reach 182,500 people, if they did not tell anyone else. If each one told 5 others then… wait a minute, you get the idea. It would take a long time.
Impressionism is my dearest love, and I hope one day to paint like Pissaro, or maybe Gauguin… Of course I have my own style, and I concentrated more on my brushwork in this piece, and multicolored skin to show my feelings rather than accurate realism. I especially love the dramatic shadows, I tried to be brave! Like I’m not passionate enough, right? I’m proud of the results! I will list all the shows I’m in in the next few days, with their websites and dates…
How true, how true that Pennsylvania Dutch saying is. I squander my art endeavors, rushing from this deadline to that, frazzled, befuddled and unsatisfied. That may be what drove Van Gogh insane, the constant turmoil to do better. I am making the presumption that perhaps the rapid cycling Bipolar Disorder that I enjoy(!) was somehow effecting him, too. Many artists share this mental illness, I know that The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation has held Insights Art Exhibitions, to establish a permanent collection of works by artists who are effected by this disorder. I am proud to be one of the Founding Artists of that collection, and proud to know these beautiful people who have done so much to further research in the field.
Three years, three works of my art in this collection. It blows my mind, just as my art has been blowing peoples minds since I was a child. How easy I forget, and wallow in my mire. That is part of this disease also. The dark days, when no amount of internal dialogue can push me out of bed, out of the bleak landscape in my head. Do you think Van Gogh, or Matisse, or Dali had such dark times? What about Francis Bacon, Pollock, Warhol ?
Then why do I feel so alone in my efforts? Yes, I’m sure the worldwide pandemic has a dampening effect, on artists as well as everyone else. Perversely, I also treasure the isolation it affords me. No one can chastise my late hours, or visit to be aghast at the paint on my floor, on my walls, on me. I think I need to get out of the house more, go walk on the beach, visit a park. All things strange and alien nowadays. I know this will pass, I have been in counselling and under proffesionals care for my Bipolar Disorder and PTSD for nearly 30 years, I take my medication every single day, because I have been all the way down into the abyss and made friends with the monsters lurking there. Only to find out that they all wanted me dead. I don’t want to be dead. I can fully understand why I did, because this pain is all encompassing. I feel each cell screaming at me to give it relief.
Not too happy, guys…
The only thing I can do is paint myself into a painless reality, a utopia of color, a sweet dream of lavender and silk, a field of gold. When sleep won’t come I will disappear into the garden that flows out of my pen, winding its way into sweet fantasy-lands where no one is mean and there is no such thing as loneliness…
I’m in “Wonderland” right now. Been here for a week or so. Time seems to be inching by, my head too heavy to lift off the pillow. Not sick physically, I’m just…just…what can I tell you? I have had some unknown trigger going me headlong into a timewarp. Into a place I never ever wanted to return to…
The Recurring Bipolarism of self image…
Is the reflection REAL?
My art, from it’s earliest inception, has contained 2 sided faces. Always compelled to create a smiling side juxtaposed to a moody/dark side. Even before I consciously knew the face was symbolically my own, before I had ever heard of mental illness or anyone called manic depressive illness bipolar, I was painting my double sided inner person. I have doodles and sketches from grade school where this manifested…it was a necessary act to portray my protagonist self this way. This was the girl inside of me, who would soon find ways to hide from physical reality in altered states…
The inner struggle raged on in imagination…detail of “The Sentinel’s Prayer” by Susan T. Martin2018
After the traumatic events of my young life had begun, my self-image became warped and twisted. My mental despair manifested itself in self harming behavior: anorexia/bulemia, punching walls, suicide attempts…to this day, nearly 50 years after the onset of the abuse, I still cannot eat without feeling ugly afterwards.
What keeps me from total despair when the flashbacks and darkness come is knowing and believing that this WILL PASS. The excruciating pain WILL END. I place this fact very deliberately and firmly into by mind every time I recover from these spells and after years of therapy, medication and learning Faith, I have overcome total despair. To RISE AGAIN AND PAINT ANOTHER DAY!!!!! I HOPE THAT DAY IS today!!
Who said that? I hate you, whoever you are. Because I…WANT…PERFECTION!
The Earth keeps spinning on it’s Axis, and my mind keeps spinning like a mouse wheel. A recent medical issue charges my thoughts with negative ions, even with semi-positive news reports… Nothing to see here, folks. Let’s keep moving…
Relevance…that’s the Key!
You do understand, don’t you? I stay up all night, retouching retouched areas-only to get out my tiny sander in the dawn and set that banshee loose…Reducing to dust all my night’s toil.
Struggle…Fight…Grapple
It doesn’t look like this now!!! AhhhhhhHaaaaHaaaaa Haaaaaa!!!!
“OLD McDONALD HAD A COMMISSION…Oh no, Oh no, Oh no……”
The First Draft of “The Dreaded Barnyard”One of my Trippy Palm Frond Creations
So, I had a “Patron”, and I am envisioning a relationship similar to Michaelangelo had with The Pope.. Endless coffers, freedom of expression in my own magnificent style, expensive dining and and more and more projects to work on. What a dream come true! I even mentioned to this kind person and lover of my art that I would give her privledged pricing on all future projects! Why not, right? I was on the gravy train from here on out, the best brushes, high quality paints…maybe marble or a bronze sculpture…or a glorious garden full of exquisite welded work! Ah, I basked in the glow of this fantasy, every artist’s dream!
THE BIRDHOUSE RACKET
Don’t get me wrong, I like money…I don’t yearn for riches like some do, which is a good thing because I would spend my life disappointed, but I do like to earn money. It validates the work I do, and it also buys good hot cocoa. So, every now and then, when I want to market my work directly, and it’s not stuff I want “too much” for; I resort to online marketplaces. To make a quick buck I’ve been known to paint palm fronds with funny animal faces for people to stick out in their gardens, and I’ve turned a quick buck…or twenty. In the recent past I painted and sold four or five birdhouses that I knocked out pretty quick, and sold them on Facebook marketplace…I was pleasantly surprised at how they were snapped up. “woohoo” ten bucks here, fifteen there…
I know what you think…you think I am ungrateful. That anyone with a talent like this that can make a dollar should not scoff at that ability. Believe me I am SO grateful. That’s not the issue. I made the choice to undersell, just to get that dough in my hand fast, I know that. Let me finish…
So, off I go (one day last month) to meet a customer for a sale. For good measure I loaded up a bunch of do-dads I had accumulated, thinking I might do some “suggestion selling” (Thank You Business Certificate). To my delighted surprise the person did buy more than one item! Not only that, they asked for more! I was tickled, really. So tickled, in fact, that I wrote a post about my new found angle on artistic marketing success! I rushed home to make more, but decided on a nap instead…
“Dysfunction Junction”, BEST of the BEST at The Backus Museum, 2016
Detail:Growth, Susan T. Martin
” Renata’s Path” commission
Before Reaching Out, Landscape of St. Lucie River at River Park Marina,Acrylic on Canvas, Susan T. Martin, 2016
Keep My Distance!
A Flashback!
A Glance Back at Some Random Works since 2015
Who Was I Then? Am I Now? Who Will I Become?
I know that we change, it is a natural thing. I’m not hung up on the aging process… the CREATIVEPROCESS is where my interest lies. My creative life ebbs and flows like the ocean, like my moods, like my illness…
Must I always speak of my art as it relates to being mentally ill with Bipolar Disorder, PTSD, OCD and /or whatever else plagues this brain of mine? YES, I think I must, because they are so intimately entwined and entangled. The Creativity comes out of the Mood, like a hand from the mist, holding a paintbrush. Flick of the wrist, this way or that- a line drawn here, a dot placed there…Mind expands, engages with the mood, holding the brush…as these wheels turn emotions are enhanced, a certain recognition occurs-as the act of painting plugs into the unconscious. Now I am unburdened, unbridled…set free to run as far and fast as I please. My physical self is left far behind on distant shore, I am just line and color, shape and opacity, flow and ebb, ebb and flow.
I want to stay suspended in my artistic dream forever, and I try. Forgoing sleep, even food, I immerse myself in the sensuality of creating beauty, even if my beauty is ugly on this day. It is a feeling felt, a thought expressed without words, a slash of yellow, a bobble of green. Fresh, lively-dank, dark. Run the gamut, go the distance…
I never stop at “dainty”, or find relief at “pretty”….no, I have to press on, and pile on the color, make it scream with indecent pinks and green. Make it cry out in crimson, dance wildly in plum. Bring on the tears in every shadow of the colors of the night.
I remember these works. I want to make more.
I like selling little birdhouses, but painting them is hurting my fragile psyche. I wasn’t made to paint smiley faces, was I? Am I selling, or am I selling out…?
Out of the Gutter Art 
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