Belief: Trust, Faith and Confidence in something or someone…an Acceptance that a statement is true or something exists
In Success: I have proven to myself, over and over again, that my work sells. That I am much better at marketing, and that with more effort I can do better still.
In Ability: Similar to my belief in my success, but here I’m including my ability to grow in skill. I have shown that I am teachable, I can learn apply new techniques rapidly, and love the learning process. I have an open mind to new art practices.
In Purpose: I see myself becoming more self sufficient, more confident. Growing in my pursuit of a life independent of outside aid. I see myself looking outward to helping others, a reachable goal. Purposeful sharing of my gifts.
In Vision: Understanding what I want to say in each work, what I see the outcome looking like. Embracing my inner voice, allowing her to speak about her journey. Letting that be the goal. Reaching out towards new horizons, letting my heart expand.
These are new thoughts, today. A plan. Guideposts. I need these set before me in a tangible way. Gentle reminders to stay on point, stay on the path of growth.
I climb out of the muck of the past today, put my feet on the crag. Climbing, Reaching, Learning….Living.
Documenting my journey, my successful artist’s journey.
There aren’t many days like this, so I will hold this one really tight. With both hands. And after the day is done I will fold it up neatly and find a safe place for it in my jewelry box, where I keep my special things. Things I like to take out and hold from time to time. A favorite rock, a marble. A feather from an osprey. Or this special grateful day.
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!!
Did it hurt? No, of course not. (well, just a wee bit, maybe…)
Oh, the joys of waiting to hear if you got the “Call”. That’s what we artists refer to when we apply for a chance to get into a show, or to paint a mural, or design a sculpture, etc. It’s a process fraught with anxiety, not for the faint of heart. Not for the empty of pocket, either.
This last one did not cost me anything to apply to, which was good, because I did not get it. I am always disappointed when I don’t get in a show, it is a fact of life in the art world. I am becoming a bit cynical and jaded about this. I find myself making snide remarks(to myself) about favoritism and prejudice, and I don’t like this kind of negative thinking. On the one hand I think it’s just a self-soothing mechanism-if I say the process is unjust it means that my work really is the best. That I really should have been chosen.
Work in Progress for past 3 years!
I don’t think this is a good way for me to look at it. This kind of attitude will just make me negative about the whole process, the art community as a whole, and make me just as prejudiced as the people I am judging. Don’t think I’m saying what anyone else should think or feel, I just know how my quirky little mind works. My father spent his life feeling jaded and cynical about “the System”, and it reached the point where no one wanted to hear him go on about it.
I mean, just think about how the poison could seep into my art. If I’m second guessing the judges then maybe I will not try as hard, not push myself. Perhaps I’d rather not try, because they “don’t like me”. Or “they won’t pick me anyway.” Or “they only choose the society types”. If I let those thoughts in then my wings stay folded and I don’t try to fly, even when the cage door is open.
Fly birdie, fly!!!!
No, I didn’t get the call because someone else did. Period. No trying to mind read. No presuming I wasn’t chosen for a reason. How about remembering all the times I have been chosen, when another artist got passed over. Or how about knowing that my work is excellent, but different than what the judges were looking for.
I must create my best work no matter what the call, or even if there is NO call. My art comes from a deep and secret place far inside, not to be pissed out at the whim of a stranger. Sure, a call may motivate me, but ultimately my satisfaction must come from creating.
I remember being a little kid in art school, hiding my drawing from the other kids, because my work was so special that I had to protect it. I didn’t hide it because it was not good, I hid it so they could not copy it. It was the most special thing about me, a super power before any one knew about superpowers. I could make up any little dream and put it on a page and no one else could ever do it the same way. I wish I had a nickel for all my little fantasy doodles. I’m smiling as I remember.
I drew for the sheer joy of watching my inner world pour out the tip of my pen. I inhabited those secret worlds, where I was always “ok”. I did not need a prize, a ribbon, a write up in the paper. And the wonderful thing is that I still don’t need it. Over the past seven years that I have been showing my work my focus had turned to the idea of money. Making money from my art.
Not because I needed it, but because I am supposed to want that! I bought into the sales model. The websites that shout at me to join this or that marketing plan. Sell your art here! Make 5 grand a week! Be your own boss! While focusing on the money I began to sweat the call results. Did I get in to that show? What is the payout? How are the prizes broken down? What a bunch of joy-squishing nonsense!
I could see trying to make an impression on my Dad, but I knew he would never see me even when he was alive. Well, he sure can’t see me now, so I can quit trying to impress the family with my wealth ! I’m so glad we had this talk! Thanks for listening!
(No, I did not get the “Call for the Wall”, but I now have the coolest spare bugroom, um, bedroom, in the entire city !)
I’ve been living with PTSD for a couple of decades now, many years. Many years… There has been miles of road covered in my healing journey, at times I feel as if I have dragged my body over continents of rough terrain. I am road weary and saddle sore. I have a sense of who I could have been, if my road had been kinder. This does not grieve me as much as it used to, I don’t mourn as much, but I do get caught up in the quicksand of the past now and then. These days I know what tools to use to work myself free, even if I do drag some dirt along for a while. I have a support network to do a deep cleaning when needed.
But my trauma never truly ever leaves. It just gets rammed back into it’s footlocker faster, and I keep more cinder blocks around to pile on top. When the stink seeps out I open the windows, pull out a fresh canvas and paint till the air clears. Ahh, how clarifying. Washing the walls of my mind with ‘Spic and Span’, that excellent cleanser of bygone days. When the walls of my childhood home were turning brown from nicotine, Mother would open a box, make a batch of suds in a bucket and with some hard work (and many smoked cigarettes) she would turn those rooms from gloom to gleam! (Damn, I can turn a phrase !)
Some of us are just born ad men (and women)
Anyway, that’s what creating my art does for my broken mind. So, when this call came out, “Rise Up, Remembering 9/11” I had serious emotions bubble to the surface. My memories of that day are not of one who was there, or who lost a loved one, a family member, a daughter, son, beloved husband or wife, a dear friend or even a colleague. My memories are the memories of collective, enormous grief and horror.
Detail of Flashback 937
How could this horror be reframed in any meaningful way? Dare I even intrude on someone else’s trauma to say how I have healed? What could I show, thru my art, that might help someone hurt one smidgen less? I have just come out of creating my most painful work to date…a painting you watched come to fruition here and on IG. That piece tore my heart out and tears are mingled in the paint. This piece was going to hurt to.
I remember sitting in the darkness of my lonely room, watching videos of the towers, before they fell. Feeling guilty for watching, but needing to see the reality of what they were experiencing. Watching them clinging to window frames as the billowing jet-fueled fires raged at their backs. I was their mother, their wife, their sister, tears pouring from my eyes, mouth open matching their silent appeals for a miracle please GodpleaseGodPLEASEGODSAVETHEM SAVEUS SAVEME!!!
Detail Flashback 937Reworked
Then their hand is forced by the pain, or they make their decision and leap…l e a p…into oblivion. I gasp…time seems to stand still as they let go…slowly, they fall, like beautiful leaves in a September wind, suitcoats flutter, white shirts billow, sensible shoes on beautiful bloody feet, top side up, bottoms up, arms akimbo, embracing the darkness rushing at them at terminal velocity. I am them, What do I feel? Do I feel? Will I feel? Bye Mom, bye Johnny, bye Laura…
I close my laptop, sobbing silently, drying my snotty nose on the bedclothes…I feel guilty,dirty, like I just did drugs or had sex. Was I depraved to watch that? Was it forgivable. Maybe it was like the people who watched me get beat, not calling for help, just watching. No, I could not have helped, no one could. Wait a minute…
I could help now. I could change the picture! It was like a time machine! I could send an angel! A strong, loving , beautiful angel-radiant and shining- to intercept her in midair! Because that’s what really happened, right? Yes. YES!
This is Rising Up! A New Direction!
It is a Work in Progress, and a humble beginning, but this is what I missed that day…this is what really happened…
I have a special place inside my heart for fellow addicts. Those without the ability to get clean, without a relationship with God, without a friend in the world. Carrying the weight of the huge monkey on his back.
I talked to him from time to time, tried to impart some nugget of wisdom, a ray of hope. He would say, “I wish a train would hit me”.
I remember that level of despair. That loathing for anything good in my life, because I did not deserve it. Hating my very being, a degraded piece of trash, discarded by society. Abandoning all hope, embracing the darkness.
The pain is excruciating. It is no wonder he wished for death.
I live across the street from his Grandma’s, where he would stay, in her laundry shed-shooting heroin. I saw him go from a funny, kind of hillbilly guy to a wretch with bloody scabs oozing down his arms. The last time I saw him he said he was really sick this time, he thought he had Covid. Well, it wasn’t Covid. First time the ambulance came, he had OD’d. They brought him back.
This time, though, it isn’t the dope… They took him to hospital with pneumonia and a Blood infection, his very sad Grandma told me. He won’t be coming home, barring a miracle.
I just hope they have made him comfortable…and that he doesn’t suffer for long. Poor, poor, Chris… I guess maybe your train finally came. I have said prayers for him and his family, and for everyone sick and dying…
I will dream tonight of my Monarchs. I saw a caterpillar tonight who had just connected himself to the bottom of my wheelbarrow. He has probably changed into a chrysalis now. Soon he will totally disappear into a liquid, before miraculously turning into a beautiful Monarch, breaking out of the chrysalis and flying free!
I hope you fly free too , my friend. I will see you again, one day soon.
UNCHAINED, UNCUFFED, Mixed Media on Board, $400.00 (Available)
I’m not perfect. Just thought I’d clear that up. I had been SO fired up about all my newfound energy, my new outlook on life. Of course that is wonderful, and I hope it continues, but I did have a bit of a blowout this weekend. I felt a crash coming on, especially because I indulged in a ton of sugary foods. Like an induced coma. I know, really, really bad bad.
At least I know what I’ve done, I need to own it . Once I sleep off the stupor, I will feel much better! In the meantime, here is a little drawing:
This painting, “Ad Infinitum”, is a commentary of my journey from Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence and Childhood Sexual Assault, Self-Loathing and Suicidal Ideation to a Life of Freedom and Acceptance of the person I was. As a person with Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder, and PTSD , this journey was arduous and excruciatingly painful.
This work has been juried into the ” 2021 Women In Art”, an online show honoring women artists for the month of March, at Las Laguna Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, California. You can view this show online at laslagunartgallery.com March 4-27,2021 Description of Work: As a Bipolar Artist I have always portrayed my duality in my work unconsciously at first, way before any diagnosis. I painted this as an entry to The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundations Insights IV Art Show in 2019, the theme being Self Portraits. As such all the women in the image are different facets of the Artist. On the Left side of the image in gilt and green vines we find a woman hanging on a stake, paying for her crimes.
Center Bottom is the past self (as I described initially here). We see that she is dark overall, and notably, wearing a mask and full of confusing puzzle-like pieces and disjointed lines. In fact even her hair is like the pages of a book that holds her many secrets. There are signs she has been in bondage, chains, shackles, even some kind of demon-like being can be seen lurking inside, still biting her(shoulder region).This collection of symbols indicate not only abuse, but also the bondage of addiction and codependency. She smiles up at the healed self who is lifting her out of the mire. Her condition had become so dire, that we see a tiny version of self scrambling up the stairs in her forearm to escape, with a look of terror on her face. That is not a shirt the lower self wears, it is her skin, which has to peeled off to reveal the clean inner person she is becoming.
Around the lower self’s neck, central to the painting we see a venomous snake, usually a symbol of evil in art, for centuries. But rather than striking, it is benevolent ( after all it is pink!) An “inside joke” on the Artist’s part, as she was bitten by a Pygmy Rattlesnake on July 5, 1985 and then by a Copperhead on August 10, 1995, which very nearly cost her her life.
BUT SHE LIVED, and now that all the other venom of her past is purged, SHE IS LIVING A JOYFUL LIFE NOW! As far as the child in the right-hand corner, that needs no explanation, nor does the love on the face of the Healed Self.
This Mixed Media Painting by Susan T. Martin is Entitled, “A Wee Bit Peckish”
Using Simultaneity and Surrealism I morph my feelings and emotions into birds, fish, and an outpouring of faces, each expressing the myriad emotions I go thru each day as a person living with PTSD and Bipolar Disorder.I wonder how many animals you can find? It’s like a little joyride into my manic mind!
Out of the Gutter Art 
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