Out of the Gutter Art

Category: Therapy

  • Orange Baby

    Orange Baby

    CHAPTER 4

    THE SAGA CONTINUES

    Morning Mindmeld c.SUSANTMARTIN2022 (sold)

         I got off track in the last chapter…  

       Too many offshoots and alleyways. Let’s move along a few years to 2020…Pandemic lock down, I’m working on Zoom with some friends. Suddenly, Donna breaks in with a plea,

    ” Would anyone like a Maine Coon kitten?”

    All the girls pipe up with ooohs! and aaahs! The idea of a warm, fuzzy kitten is SO appealing, so comforting in this lonely isolation. I was down to just one outside cat, Frenchy. She was pushing 16, Fogerty and Ollie had died the year before. In the interim, I had also lost 2 of my beloved dogs to cancer and old age. My remaining little Shih Tzu, Kleo, had become much less active as she aged. Perhaps a kitten would be a nice addition to my little homestead.

       My little “not a Maine Coon” kitten as delivered within 3 days. Super fuzzy, a golden cloud, he is a special boy. I name him Zignatious Horatio Needlefingers, and I fall in love. The new routine wasn’t too bad. One catbox, one kitten, one dog to feed and vet seemed manageable.

       Things rapidly changed. My kind heart was about to be sorely tested. Approximately one month later, I rescued a half-grown boy cat who I found crying his little heart out in my neighbors front hedges. It was after a “fireworks” holiday; he had obviously run away in the horrible onslaught of noise. My biker neighbor had been feeding him lunch meat, but he needed proper care. I bundled him into the house and he quickly became the Zag to my Zig. They were now happy playmates. But the vet bills and catboxes had now doubled.

       WHY DID I ALWAYS HAVE TO BE THE SAVIOR? WHAT CHARACTER DEFECT MADE ME A SUCKER FOR LOST ANIMALS?

      

       Looking back now, I understand the pattern. I had been a mother to my alcoholic, abusive husband. The caregiver for my beloved Mom during her illness- even before. She was so needy all my life, telling me she “lived through me”. Finally, being mother/ caregiver to my dear Dad. Caring for his every need as his madness progressed into a second childhood and excruciatingd death. All those years of caregiving through all those events made me feel needed, wanted, and useful. Loved.

       The convoluted and traumatic relationships and disfunction had left me with a void, a pit inside me. And I was filling it with warm, furry little bodies. Ever the caregiver, ever the mother. My self-worth depended on having people and/or pets to care for. 

       It would get worse.

  • Faces I see, Dreams of Me

    Faces I see, Dreams of Me

  • Painting My Heart Out

    Painting My Heart Out

    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…

  • The Hurrier I Go…

    The Hurrier I Go…

    THE BEHINDER I GET

    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…

  • IN the Mirror

    IN the Mirror

    recognizing my BIPOLAR self image

    “A Big Beak”…by Susan T. Martin

    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.

    • Susan Past ©STM2018
    • In Plain Sight/ Insane, Right? ©Susan T. Martin”The Party’s Over”
    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!!
  • GRINDING AWAY

    GRINDING AWAY

    ‘Progress, not perfection.’

    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!!!!


  • RESOLVING THE COMMISSION DILEMMA

    RESOLVING THE COMMISSION DILEMMA

    Stuck in the Barnyard

    “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…

    (more…)
  • 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