It is the white hot lead that throbbed in my spine last night. Coloring every second of every hour a bloody shade of red. The red from my bitten lip, the red of my sleepless eyes.
Why last night, when I’d been doing so well- doing so much so well ? Hmmm…let’s see….let us analyze:
Saturday: Ride horse.
Yup. There ya go, Dopey.
So now I am lying on a frozen bag of broccoli, contemplating a pain pill, contemplating calling an ambulance and wishing I had a gallon of chocolate ice cream and a liter of scotch. I haven’t had a drink in 21 years…but I gotta say, oblivion has a certain appeal right now.
And doesn’t it just figure that when I’m hittin’ on all cylinders in my art business; applying for grants, apprenticing to a famous sculptor, putting in bids on murals, putting paintings in shows and working on another-BRAINSTORMING MY BIPOLAR ” HEAD OFF-this, this is the week I decide to ride a horse.
Well, it’s just another day in the life. I wish I could avoid these conundrums, but that’s just not me. (on a side note, I just noticed that when you hit ‘bold’ and ‘italicize’ even the period dot gets bold. Ooooo….)
Any hoo… I guess that’s all for now. I have another grant opportunity I have to finish applying for by this Saturday, and tomorrow I go to the metal shop, so I better try to rest and see if I can walk in the a.m. Oh, wait, maybe I’ll look outside for a hippo to wrestle first! Sheesh!
(all that being said, I am creating a bunch of awesome art right now!)
KODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still Camera
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!!
I eat a lot of my art. Great flow, free strokes, endless imagination…stuffed in my spare bedroom.
“What spare bedroom?”
You have a right to ask, especially when the door is always shut, the cat box takes center stage, there is no sign of any bed and the entire perimiter is taken up with painted furniture, sculpture, assemblage and canvases. As well as various and sundry art supplies.
Some of the Offerings in my Art Restaurant
I cooked this up for a Month…
Just a Snack
There may not be food in the fridge, but there are tons of things to eat. I had such high hopes, you see. When I first began showing my work in earnest it was too easy. I started small, modest-like, in a gallery space I had never heard of. Actually, even though I had lived in Fort Pierce/Port Saint Lucie for over 30 years, I had only been to one(1!!) Art Gallery there.
Twenty three years of active addiction and utter chaos had stunted my artistic growth, even though I still considered myself a ‘gifted’ artist. Hah! If ever a gift had been squandered…well, you know the ole sob story. If, If, If. Poor me, pour me a drink.
My life only really began at sobriety, my little artistic endeavors after high school and still totally gonzo had amounted to some really bad free-hand tattoos in a state where tats were illegal…(“Is that a vulture, or an eagle, dude?” ” I don’t see a Black Widow, it looks more like a Tick!”) Thank God I didn’t sign them, whew… Oh, and an attempt at freelance Sign painting for a Crackhead who had somehow acquired enough money to open a “Bar” in a very old, abandoned Ice House (yes, these did exist) along a very old , abandoned highway in the deep, dark, old abandoned South. It was going to be named, remarkably, “The Ice House”, and Mr. Tavern Owner/Crackhead had a brilliant idea for his sign(…or was it my idea? Ah, well, gimme another hit and pass that ‘shine over here…)
Yes, you guessed it: ICE. Not just any old ice, either. No, this 4′ x 5′ sign was going to have an image of an ICEMachine !! And a Penguin in a striped hat and scarf getting ICE out of it!!! And, to top it all off, (wait for it…..wait for it…..) I was going to letter it without laying it out first…Freehand!!!
WOW, was this dude getting a deal, right? He could have paid me with dope, it’s so long ago(thankfully). I guess for that part of the world talent was hard to come by, but I happen to think if a deer had #@$! on that piece of plywood, it would have been way better!
Anyhoo… Done deal, and I even got an extra 50 bucks to hang it. I know what you are thinking…I should have paid him 50 bucks to burn it.
So right there in old South Cackalackee hung my little rendition of a drunken Penguin inviting all to come get snookered at The Ice House! Fortunately, the Owner blew all his money at The Crackhouse before the ribbon cutting, so aforementioned sign was taken down and used to board the place up…with the blank side facing the road, of course…
This was going to be more of a three-course post, but I have depressed myself now. So I am going to sign off and flop on the couch with a couple of my decadent Pumkin Scones I just made. Now they are a Masterpiece!!
Out of the Gutter Art 
You must be logged in to post a comment.