Out of the Gutter Art

Category: learning

  • It’s Just Me…

    It’s Just Me…

    Not Famous…no where near it… Glad of that, today. Happy inside my little cottage, warm and contemplating making a dessert recipe. Maybe I’ll share it with my Friend across the way, she’s a true friend.

    Thinking fuzzy thoughts about my Mother, Carol, today. Remembering her smell, her feel when I embraced her. The soft place between her breasts where I would lay my head as a child. Mummy…

    She was always hiding…her emotions, her loves, her hates. Hiding inside huge tee shirts and under handmade afghans-waiting for that rotten husband of hers to say or do something kind… Hiding because he was never kind…

    I grew up a cross between the two of them: Needy and uncertain juxtaposed by selfish and unkind. A brutal mix of warring selves, hating myself more than the world, then hating all the world and myself.

    Brittle and broken around the edges, warm and soft in the middle-like a cookie baked at too high a temperature…

    I had run hard, played hard, fought hard and burned out, the crumpled package of me still held a broken and beating heart. My God reached in and ever-so-gentle pulled me out of the fire. He helped me as the layers of the skin I had worn sloughed off, he brought me across vast deserts filled with the skeletons of my broken dreams, over pits full of the venom of self-loathing…He bandaged my broken hands that had beaten down my own hopes, and placed me gently on a bed spread with forgiveness and love. He pulled the covers over me like the wings of the Eagle and He held me fast with ropes of loving kindness…Oh how I love him now, how much his love has filled me. I don’t have to hide, because I am healed, the scars on my face have faded. The scars on my heart remind me sometimes that I have to stretch out further than some to forgive…

    When you work at a scarred and injured part of your body, you have to rub it and work it over and over, over and over to break up all the scar tissue. So when our hearts are hurt it takes working at this loving, working at this forgiveness, working at this gratitude to learn to expand our hearts again…to open our hearts wide…

    Passed On©STMartin2010
  • Are You Confused?

    Are You Confused?

    • “Dysfunction Junction”, BEST of the BEST at The Backus Museum, 2016
    • Detail:Growth, Susan T. Martin
      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 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

  • The Cathouse

    The Cathouse

    Munson, A Treasured Friend assemblage on Carved Sculpture by Susan T. Martin, in The Art on The Island 3-D Art Show

    Been trapping feral kitties this weekend…but not to kill them. Yay! I’ve been working with a nonprofit called Meow Now, which I believe has chapters nationwide. They catch, neuter/spay , vaccinate and bring back the cats. This then allows the colony to live a healthy life and controls the population of feral cats… An established colony deters more cats from moving in also. I had counted 11 ferals on our street, we caught 9 so far… I’ve not been able to get much done in the way of work for a couple days… Will have to hit it hard to have some works ready for the Holiday Show and Sale downtown at The Morean Arts Center… I’ll be back with some new stuff SOON!!!

    • Free Now George, A Mixed Media Digital Work by STMartin2016
    • Munson, a Treasured Friend, mixed media sculpture, Award of Merit, Best of the Best Show at the A.E. Backus Museum, Susan T. Martin 2015
  • HIGH Time

    HIGH Time

    Introducing:

    SUTI’S WHIMSIES

    Susan T. Martin’s JOYFUL, BUOYANT Designs

    For Your Distinctive

    HOME and GARDEN!!

    So many irons in the fire. I’m trying SO HARD to stay focused and get my online sales sites going for my ‘Suti’s Whimsies” Art. I am planning on separating this side of my art practice to include my lighthearted works, the birdhouses, end tables, tiny tables, suncatchers and flowery objects I whip out fairly fast. (when I’m not sitting here doodling all night!) I have SO many sites that I don’t keep up with, so I am choosing one platform for those, and marketing them as whimsical home and patio decor. I like the name Suti, it combines my first Name and initial in a cutsie way(to go with the cutsie art!) I had copyrighted my ‘cartoon’ Characters , “DINGLEBERRY AND FRIENDS” back in 2002. I will put ©SusanTMartin on those items. I am getting really good response on these ‘low dollar’ items , using Facebook Marketplace. I had 5 people in one day clamoring for the first birdhouse, today I sold 2 more before they even were listed!! At this rate I need to hire assistants to help me keep up. I’m going to hit these hard for a while, gain some much needed capital to enter some shows this season. Oh, plans , plans !! One foot in front of the other! I have to figure out which payment options to use. I made this site just premium again, I couldn’t get it together with the business option. I wish I had a manager to handle the marketing… Should I approach one? Try to get a small business license? I wish I knew. I’m so held back by my brain injury… marketing and Logistics aren’t my high point any more… Never were , really….ah well, I’m still a happy peasant.

    • SUTI’S WHIMSIES
  • Yellow Belly.

    Yellow Belly.

    Red Jello. Green jellybeans…Green-Eyed Greedy Gut: runs around eating the whole world up.

    Red Beans and Rice. Red Eye Gravy. Red Bone Coon Hound,

    Yellow Rice. Condaleeza Rice. Yellow-bellied Sap Sucker. Red Robin. Red Skin Potatoes.

    Green Godess. Long Island Iced Tea. Rum. Lots and lots of Rum.

    Brown Gravy, Brown Eyed Girl…Skin Browned by the Sun. Skin.

    Smooth Skin, Tanned Skin, Supple Skin. Skin Head

    Random Words, Targeted Pain. Lasting Pain, Throbbing, Stabbing, Burning, Achy , Dull, Acute Pain.

    Red Yellow Green and Brown Pain. White Pain. My pain.

  • FAIL…SAFE?

    FAIL…SAFE?

    Stick your neck out. You gotta fail to win. Break a leg. And on and on…

    A new Hybrid Creation!! A physical 3/D art mask with Digitally Painted surround!! Cool, man! ©Susan T Martin

    Do you think of yourself as fearless? I used to think I was-when I was very, very drunk. Then I would cling to my “old man”, laughing like a lunatic, as we would race down I-26 at about 120mph on his old shovelhead. Whew…

    That is not fearless. That’s just insane.

    I was asking God the other day, to let me know what kind of art I should create. He did not suddenly give me skills like Michaelangelo, unfortunately. However, I share the same birthday with that marvelous personage. (Michaelangelo, that is…)

    God has remained quiet, and has allowed me to decide what to make. That is why he gave me an imagination. And a drive to put what I see playing on my internal projector out into the real world, for others to see. Sometimes what I choose to show is not pretty, but has some meaning for me. At times my work is mildly odd, at others it can be painful for me to see, because the images or emotions have come from a deep and scary place. This particular type of art can be very therapeutic for me as a survivor; I take the monster out of the box, turn it this way, then that, think on it a bit, maybe beat it up a little, and then put it safely away again.

    I feel strong after I do that, because I chose how to interpret the emotion, not the perp.

    I saw it thru my lens, from a distance I am comfortable with, and I share what I choose to share. When I am at my bravest, I am not considering what the viewer might think at all. That may sound counter-intuitive , after all, don’t I want to please the viewer? Coax them into buying my art?

    Aren’t I actually shooting myself in the foot?

    ( It really is going to be Allright, Mother…I will not starve…)

    I feel like such a big chicken when I create art to please the masses. Well, I don’t have “masses”, how about a ‘mass’. How about a ‘mess’? If messes were my main concern I’d be Uber famous, because I have messes everywhere.

    Anyway, I create art because I am an artist. It’s part of me. It’s not a job, it’s my identity, my natural state of being.

    Should I paint “safe” so as not to “fail”….

    I will create art, that is what I do. As long as I do this , I will always be ‘safe’ in the knowledge that I gave that which I have so graciously been given.

    Don’t let fear of failure cause you to fence yourself in. Find a break in that fence, gather your courage and break thru!! When you free yourself from the constraints of creating for someone else, your imagination will soar to great new heights!!

    This was one of those paintings that Hurt, as I was painting it… But it had to be done, for my own healing…

  • Over the Humpty-Dump

    Over the Humpty-Dump

    Oh, the fun of a downward spiral…After a week or two of just mind blowing energy and creativity, comes the inevitable crash. This time it was about a week of doldrums, pain, negativity and actual physical illness, all of which I attribute to this illness called Bipolar Disorder.

    The worst part of a depressive episode, besides dishes and dirty laundry accumulating , and unmade beds and unmopped floors, is this: Lack of Creativity . It cripples me. Makes me agonize about my ability, question my work, my path, my life course. I think of a million different ways I am a failure, and I become totally immobilized, sucked into my squishy pillow, and held captive by doubt. Even though I know what is happening , and know my thoughts are tangled for a time, I am still unable to make a move.

    Portals to Peace

    I can best liken it to being held hostage, until the cycle passes.

    So-here I am today, a new day, a new cycle! We are on the upswing, baby!! Hold on tight, cause I am an artist extraordinaire, a churning swirling dervish holding 10 brushes in one hand while I work on 5 canvases at one time !!!WOO HOO!!!

    Another Incredible Tiny Table ready for someones patio!!

    A little bit of Gallery Wrapped Joy ready for sale!

    All in All, I’m just too hot to handle right now, and I’m painting like a human tornado!!! Ok, maybe just a little dust devil, but you get the idea!!! Let it Fly, say I!!!!wheeeee!