Category: Best

  • AM I FAMOUS YET?

    AM I FAMOUS YET?

    Always seeking New Horizons, Learning, Growing, Never Stagnant !!!

    ARE YOU READY TO LOOK THRU MY EYES?

    Did I really want fame? Maybe when I was 13 and dying to “Be Someone”. Telling everyone I was born on the same day as Michaelangeo (I was), like it meant I was as good as him (it doesn’t). I just wanted to be SEEN!!!!! NOTICE ME!!

    Full of TEENAGE ANGST AND ANGER, HATING MY CIRCUMSTANCES, THE INJUSTICE OF IT ALL…WANTING TO PROVE SOMETHING, TO SCARE PEOPLE, ALL TO PROTECT THE HURT AND FRIGHTENED CHILD I was inside.

    I PAINTED ANGRY, SHOCKING THINGS: DEMONS, GORE, DEATH, RAGE, VIOLENCE…I WAS A REBEL , FORGING NEW GROUND…NOT KNOWING THOUSANDS OF FEET HAD GONE DOWN THE SAME ROAD DAYS, AND MONTHS, YEARS AND CENTURIES BEFORE….

    NEW WAS OLD, I WAS CRAZED AND VICTIMIZED, DRUGGING MYSELF TO EASE THE PAIN IN MY HEAD, THE TEAR IN MY HEART, THE LOSS OF MY INNOCENCE…MY ART WAS MORE RADICAL THAN whose? My classmates? So what, I was in some obscure high school in Pennsylvania, I was not working as an apprentice to DaVinci… WHO DID I THINK I WAS?

    The baddest of the bad, I would get higher, drunker, do more crazy deeds, fight with the boys, flirt with abandon, try to inflict the most pain on my family, but mainly… INFLICT SUFFERING ON MYSELF.

    MENTAL ILLNESS…DOES IT MAKE ARTISTS GREAT? It makes Mentally Ill artists lonely, lost and suicidal, just like everyone else. But in my mind NO ONE HAD EVER HURT LIKE I DID. I WANTED YOU ALL TO KNOW. I WANTED YOU TO REALLY FEEL THE PAIN TOO…isn’t that what GREAT ARTISTS DO?

    So I ask again… Am I famous yet?

    ARE YOU READY TO COMMISSION A MASTERPIECE?

    Contact Me: (727)541-6808 US

    outofthegutterart@Gmail.com

    Detail of “FLEETING”, my third work to be included in The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation Permanent Collection

    Ready? Set? GO GO GO!!!!!!

    “FLASHBACK 937″ Mixed Media on 28″ x 24” canvas, Price Upon Request
    Detail, “A Wee Bit Peckish” Mixed Media on28″ x 24″canvas by Susan T. Martin (Price Upon Request)

    The Painting you see on the left is inspired by the Battle for Hill 937 in The Vietnam War, which I relate to in my experience as a survivor of my own Battle for survival , my Hill being my own body and mind, my enemy being my abusers.

    The next Image is a Detail from a Self Portrait, depicting my inner Bipolar Struggles…(Price Upon Reqest)

    A Palm Frond Fish!

    My “Spring Hearts” Jello Mold in The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation Collection!

    No Canvas? How about my Rickety Fence?

    Climbing Out (Detail of Larger Work) ©Susan T. Martin

    “AD INFINITUM” Mixed Media on Gallery Wrapped Canvas by Susan T. Martin (Price upon Request)

    Would you like to become my Patron? Any and all help is most appreciated…I have so much to give and, very often, no funds to create! Lack of financial stability has made me experiment and have success with many new substrates and methods! For example my “palm frond” critters and “outrageous jello molds”… But, OH, want could I do with a LARGE CANVAS or Sculpting Clay, a Plasma Cutter or even Good Brushes? Wow! The SKY is the limit!!

    My First Work to be placed in The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation’s permanent collection in 2017: “CROSSING THE DELAWARE, WELL AWARE”, Mixed Media on Canvas by Susan T. Martin

    Thanks and a Huge SHOUT OUT to ALL my FRIENDS, FAMILY AND FOLLOWERS!! You know who you are!!!!

  • Are You Confused?

    Are You Confused?

    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 CREATIVE PROCESS 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…?

  • A Freewheeling Frenzy!

    This Beauty is one of a pair of Cabintet from a large entertainment stand, The Other is outside, drying…

    I have to get the mix just right: a smidgen of anxiety, a pinch of hunger, a good dose of caffeine and just about 48 hours without sleep and *BAM*! The NY creative lightning strikes! Tonight was the night, today was the day, cleaning off my museum pieces with fine brushes, repairing and sprucing up the shelves to display new work… Giving my custom painted floor a deep cleaning in preparation for the faux Renaissance tile I will be handpainting there.

    I am pulling out all the stops while the proverbial light is green for GO!! I pulled out all my nearly finished projects for a big push to clear the studio, putting all the months (years?) of pondering into real execution. Clean the brushes, check all the supplies and paint paint paint!!

    Here are a couple newbies, from today…

    oooo…
    “M’lady Insomnia”, 12″ x 12″ on Canvas ©STMartin2020