I’ve had a presence here for a long time. Going on 16 years, which is mind-blowing! And I still havent learnd all I can do here! I wanted, for a long time now, to set up a store where I could sell my art. Something always holds me back… Excuses, lack of confidence…life in general.
I recieved a scholarship for a 10 week “Art Business” course from the Tampa Bay Innovation Center and Creative Pinellas. I have learned so much, and have taken the plunge and registered a LLC. Oh boy. Exciting! and Terrifying! I will have to be all grown up now, and quit farting around!!
So I am starting a whole new site, with a new domain, user name, everything…I will try to still post my “hardcore” art here, all the strange stuff that pours out of me onto whatever media is at hand!
But for my “real” Art Business I am going to make what sells here in Beachy, Touristy Florida. Hopefully I will make it. I will sure try!
I’ll come back here and let Y’all know when the other site is ready, and I will still share my witty wisdom here. Thank you all so much for being here to support me, to listen when I need an outlet, and to be here! Rock On my Friends!!
My Founding Artist painting: The first of my works to be placed in The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation’s Permanent Collection!
Fittingly titled “Crossing the Deleware, Well Aware” it shows my journey from despair and being held back by my past to shedding the overcoat of depression and walking into the sunlight of my artistic future! I based this title on the little “George Washington” Dude lurking down in the bottom center of the painting…See his funny hat?
My “Doubting Suzie” Ways
Ok, friends, here’s the deal: I quit working as Frank Strunk III’s intern last week. Why, when I was enjoying learning from him so much? Why, when my mind was blooming open to all kinds of brilliant metal working techniques, and my mind was being blown by his artistic vision?
“Why in the world would you do that Susan Todd?”, Susan Todd asked Susan Todd.
I figured out the answer to that yesterday, although the reasons I gave Frank were that
A. I need to focus on my work I already do, cause it’s what I do. (Huh?)
B. I am doing a piece about my Dad and I’m an emotional landmine.(Hmmmm….What?)
C. I have been invited to a big event and need to focus.(Nope.)
D. Too many scattered efforts make Suzie nuts. (Now THAT makes sense)
Did I do the right thing? I wasn’t sure, because I really want to make metal art. I’m frequently making impulsive decisions and regretting them. He was generous with his time, his tools, opening his shop, his art and heart to help an emerging artist. And I bailed, just when I was really digging in.
I hate how my Bipolar Disorder makes me run Soooo Hot and then drops me on my doubtful butt. But it did, and here I am. Have I done what I said I was going to do? Well, yes. Yes I have. So that is good, I really have benefited from focusing on less! I have finished one of the pieces for the new INSIGHTS V call and started 2 more. I entered the Art of Possibilities Show in Missouri with 3 works, and finished 2 Grant applications plus am working on a third. And this third one is a doozy.
I didn’t get the last three I applied for, but I’m getting better all the time at writing them. This new one I am having trouble writing, but that is ok. I AM REACHING OUT!! Oh, and I finished my Art Business course that the St Pete Arts Alliance gave me a scholarship for!
So, have I been working, and trying and FIGHTING for myself?
Yes! YES!! YES!!!! Making connections and forging ahead, breaking new ground in new and exciting directions. Learning new marketing skills and remembering old ones I had forgotten. Benefiting from taking little risks and meeting new artists.
Now that I have written this I am astounded at all I have accomplished in the past 2 months. I really am a creative Powerhouse! Cutting thru the choppy waters like a PRO! Go Suzie, Go Suzie!
There is NO limit on my creative potential! I can SOAR! Look at me go!!
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!!!!
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!!
“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…
Out of the Gutter Art 
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