Having a Traumatic Brain Injury is a real drag. Of course it is. Mine was not the worst kind, as we so often sadly see in war, car accidents, shootings.
I was brain injured in stages, blow by sickening blow, at the hands of a man who had pledged to love and cherish me. It is not to discuss him, or my past that I bring this up. It is the aftermath.
I had many concussions already when I suffered a series of falls in 2013 where I suffered another head injury. After that one I experienced vertigo “on steroids”. After coming home from the hospital, I went to bed, hurting from a broken ankle but otherwise ok. I had to get up and pee, so I teetered on my crutches towards the loo. Lo and Behold! I was so dizzy I toppled sideways into the closet doors and crashed headfirst into them, knocking them off their track! And knocking me off mine, you might say.!
Detail of “Flashback 937”, a biographical work about my journey out of domestic abuse…
Long story short, its been 8 years. Initially I had Physical Therapy for a span of about 2 years. The vertigo I was experiencing is called Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo, or BPPV. Usually a quick maneuver by the therapist, turning one this way then that, is all that is required for a full recovery. In 99 percent of cases. You guessed it… I was not cured. So I have bouts of cross-eyed misery on a bi-monthly basis.
“Unplugged” a digital finger painting showing my brain’s misfiring connections…
You don’t realize how sick vertigo can make you till you endure this joy ride. First I want to puke, then I nearly fall, then I’m overcome with a fatigue so profound that getting out of bed is a monumental feat. And this Rollercoaster just keeps going round. The problem is that I feel so sick that I don’t recognize the BPPV right away. Until I snap a selfie and realize my eyes are out of whack again. Oh, I forgot to mention the blinding headaches… Yeah, those. Ok, the light is hurting my eyes… Back to bed.
Another Night blurs into Day…and on, and on, and on…
” The place I was found is where I remain; a scar on the ground in The Land of Lost Names”
I paint intuitively, I guess you could say. I do have some “book learnin’” as far as laying out a proper painting; sketch it first…wait. I don’t do that. EVER. I’m sure it’s a great idea, and I’ve kicked myself many times for not doing that very thing. But that won’t make me do it the next time. Does this limit me? I have no clue, because my imagination is endless, and part of my process is digging myself out of whatever little jams I get myself into. It’s the Thing that makes one of my paintings MINE.
I am sorry sometimes that I paint over certain elements, but I usually have a photo of the previous version for posterity, and if anyone ever wanted, I could print it. I’ve thought about doing just that at times. I think the whole “paint over it” thing stems from not being able to afford canvas. But also, perhaps developing simultaneously, I feel a need to change what I just painted to something new. Not because of a mistake, although I will admit I’ve made one. ONE. No, not that…I love to morph people into new faces, new poses, new emotions. Life is very fluid. My thoughts are fluid.
These are the first thoughts that lived on this canvas. Starting 2 years ago
Then the Piece moved into this…
oh, this happened in between…
you guessed it… Moving right along…lots of pain…
Then I put the piece away. It just hurt too much to keep remembering ‘the event’, and I moved on to better projects. Every now and then I would look at the piece, in the corner of “The Cat Box Room” which was to be my studio in some “before reality set in” lifetime. It bothered me. The yellow duck was grinning foolishly at me, the strange red lady still watched the activities in the green Skylark with sad resignation, and my “self” still looked on in anger and loathing…
The Day My Focus Shifted…
I was scrolling aimlessly through my Facebook feed, tired and disgusted with my couch-potato-ing lifestyle, when I came across a sad post on a friends feed. She likes to re-post searches for lost animals, found animals, missing purses etc… This was different. It was a photo of a fresh faced seventeen year old, grinning at his sister who held the camera. I knew that look, I grew up with one older brother who I adored, and followed around constantly, snapping photos.
But my brother did not leave the house one sunny day in 1987 to go down to the Seven-Eleven, only to vanish forever. Poof. Gone. No packed bag, no argument with the folks, no history of drug use, gang affiliation, criminal past…nothing. He was not upset over a break-up or being treated for any mental illness. He had no history of depression, there was just no reason for him to leave home. But he was gone, and has not been heard from by his family since that day.
His sister was still grieving thirty four years later, as if it happened yesterday. A fresh bleeding gash to her heart, all these years later. As this sunk in , I felt it keenly. I scrolled thru the comments, ready to send a sympathetic emoji , then reconsidering. It seemed petty, trite, in the face of such profound grief. Then I saw a comment that just said, “Have you checked namus.com?” Namus? I never heard of it, and thought it was awful that someone was trying to promote a Counseling firm or therapy place. So I went to the site myself.
Wow. Oh.
So, I scrolled thru that site for two hours, crying. I tear up now. Just a shoe sometimes. Or a picture of a section of a deceased persons body with a grey-looking tattoo. Maybe a Lakers cap and a dirty pair of blue jeans. Or the phrase “Location not mapped” and, instead, a set of GPS coordinates. Often, these were all that remained of somebody’s brother, mother, sister, father, son or daughter. Or their wife, their best friend, their twin, their beloved cousin.
No ID, nothing. Even if an ID was found, perhaps the unidentified had no face left to match it to. Oh my, the scenarios are endless…and the locations were just as enigmatic in many cases. East River, park bench in Central Park, found in front of hospital, in a tent by the roadside, a culvert, a ditch.
But for me the saddest were in Brooks County, Texas. Seventy miles north of the Rio Grande, on American soil, owned by incredibly rich rancher corporations. Dusty, dry brushland, miles of it, where remains are often found. Scattered remains, usually.
The one that still is burned into my brain is the little hair barrettes…lovely little beaded things that probable graced the braid of a beautiful girl with bright eyes who had dreams of being on American Idol one day, or of being a veterinarian, a doctor, a mother.
These are the people who came to inhabit my painting. And the reason I titled it the way I did…
” The place I was found is where I remain, a scar on the ground in The Land of Lost Names”.
I was reading Eric Wayne’s blog , @artofericwayne.com, and he focused a piece on the fine art of Suzzan Blac. (I will refer you to his article and won’t share her work here.) Holy Toledo. The things I allude to in some of my biographical work, the fact that I thought I was being so brave…no. This artist lays it bare…flays it bare.
She nails the darkest emotions that creep into my nightmares, 50 years after the events. Nothing held back. I admire this work, even if I look at it in secret, as if it’s evil perps can see me, too. As if others can tell that the abuse made me want to hurt someone just like I was hurt. That is the most disgusting part to me, the stain on my soul. That’s the painful truth that I thought my God could never forgive me for…the filthy truth that kept me out in the cold sticking needles in my flesh just to forget for a few minutes…kept me out there for 23 years. I wanted to die, just like I want to kill the perps she pictures so perfectly…
I can’t say I love her work, or even like it, it feels too real to me. It makes me respond like the people I have told my experiences to; that half smile and and nod of understanding while their eyes glaze over with fear and a sort of loathing…like my very words are getting dirt on them. Suzzan is courageous in that she can look her demons in the eye and paint them. Nailing their guilt to the canvas forever. But her pain, her brokenness is palpable and forever on display for both victims and sick minds to see.
That Day, Acrylic and embellishment on canvas, Susan T. Martin, 2016
I can’t look too long, and perhaps I should not look at all, for my own sanity. I recognize her need to paint her experiences. I have to also, to get the emotions out and onto the page, onto the canvas where they can’t rip me up inside, at least for a little while. I do this to heal, to repair my damaged psyche until my God repairs me permanently.
It’s so easy to forget how far I have come in my Art journey. I wish I could say that I remember to count my blessings everyday, but today, for most of the morning, I was not grateful at all. The things that were inflringing on my serenity seemed so monumental at the time, and I was vocal about it.
The venue didn’t do this, didn’t do that…didn’t recognize HRH Martin, basically…yet I claimed the day before that I was just happy to make my seahorse/mermaid sculpture, and did not care if I won.
, SI did have legitimate gripes, the primary one being no tent, no shade, no respite from the blazing sun. It was their first rodeo and the poor organizer lady had a zillion things to do, and I believe she tried to snag me a tent. But I completely had a meltdown, and even Mer Sea was starting to lose her cool cause I used a lot of hot glue as fasteners. Not bad tho…
I’ve carried her in and out of the house and car about 6 or 7 times so far, she’s held it together admirably! Better than me! As I was fretting a lovely young man appeared on a bike and parked it right behind me on the beach. He P I ioo up was there to take his daily swim and clear his mind. Did I say he was beautiful? Well, we struck up a conversation about gratitude, and mindfulness and he reminded be to breath. To look around at the ocean, put my toes in the water. To feel the love of God in the wonders of creation. To be in the present, fully aware.
Did I ever tell you my nickname as a small child? It was ‘Paper Factory’. Not Kissy Poo, not Huggy Bear…no, it was Paper Factory. The reason being that I was always sitting, round-tipped scissors in hand, with a swath of construction paper scraps strewn around me. It was like the Saturn’s rings, little pieces, big pieces and lots of Elmer’s. Along with buttons and bits of ribbon and whatever small rodent pelt I happened to have skinned off that day…I like fur, what can I say? So, I guess they could have called me Buffalo Bill, or Hannibal Lecter…Paper Factory was strange enough…
Some of the 3D Stuff I’ve made…
(As a side point, I did not kill the fuzzy little animals, I left that up to Munson the cat. And I especially liked mole fur… )
Anyway, I liked to build little art items, and I still do. Assemblage. What an excellent word. Assemblage. Not gluing stuff together, not making doo-hickies…Assemblage. Very noble.
My fondness for construction had few outlets in public school, except for my advanced art class with Mr. O’hara. I hated him for being critical of my work, and I loved him for pushing me to new heights. He sent one clay sculpture I made to a show in New York City, along with some other kids, and he helped me believe in myself. Even if I was a dope smoking, quaalude eating burnout. The aforementioned sculpture was a handbuilt piece, which I built on my own hand, with the palm morphing into a face and the wrist and forearm becoming a cloven hoof, and for good measure, a rat climbing thru the guy’s eye and out his mouth. Or perhaps into his mouth and out his eye. Interestingly, I cut up one of my Dad’s fine Chinchilla fur gloves and glued it to the bull’s leg…I can’t remember if I furred the rat… Anyhow, I was able to hang onto that piece into adulthood till I broke it in one drunken rage, or another. The next assemblage was a piece using syringes I heisted from Mother’s veterinarian stockpile (no needle) and vitamin tablets and capsules from Dad’s medicine cabinet. Adding a razor blade and some baby powder to my collage, and an image of an unconscious teenager, I was pleased with the result, and all Mr. O’hara did was give me an A+ and a raised eyebrow. Unfortunately, the Principal didn’t appreciate low brow art and my masterpiece was removed from the senior art show. (That’s OK, cause the vitamin E capsules had melted…)
There was a lull in my assemblage repertoire as my scholastic career ended and my addictions progressed. I don’t recall building any art for about 23 years, although I did build a long list of failed relationships, a few arrests and some stints in detox and rehabs.
KODAK Digital Still Camera
KODAK Digital Still Camera
Fast forward to 2014…It was four years after my Mom died, after a long depression and inability to create anything but poems, when I answered a local call to artists. I had never shown any art, but this call launched my formal art career and catapulted me into the local limelight. The call was about Treasure. The east coast of Florida, down around Melbourne to Stuart is called The Treasure Coast because of the mother lode of shipwrecks yielding tons of loot. This particular year was an Anniversary, so they wanted treasure themed art. This was for The Best of the Best show at The A. E. Backus Museum, an international juried season opening show. I knew nothing about the significance of any of this.
My piece was a sculpey carved cat head, which was made in high school 20 years prior , and left out in the garden to moulder. I brought it in, bleached it, and painted it like my deceased Mom’s beloved cat, Munson. As a huge fan of pirate movies when I was a kid, I loved the idea of a treasure chest. So I took all my jewelry, treasured hand-me downs, costume and fine, and proceeded to encrust this cathead like it belonged to the Ali Baba himself. It was a wonderment in its glistening splendor. (no, I don’t have an ego). I even put a rhinestone collar on it and a tag saying, ‘Munson, a Treasured Friend.’ It took an Award of Merit, which was pretty impressive for a first effort. And thusly, my noted career in assemblage began.
It was the tip of the iceberg, and a flurry of 3-D work ensued. A famous dragonfly made of a discarded patio table, curtain rods, gutters , roof decking and a couple of spaghetti forks came next, and a gutter snipe at it’s heels.
MerSea the Maid-Horse
So, you see, my MerSea the Maid-Horse is part of a history of Assemblage excellence, by a little girl called “Paper Factory”.
Paper Factory
PS: Mer Sea’s framework was built in 2015, while I was my Dad’s caregiver. She was all white, with an ironing board frame and wore a prom dress. I kept her in the living room after the show she was in and Dad, in his dementia, loved that horse like it was real. He would pat her on the nose and laugh like a schoolboy. I lost him a few months later. So Mer Sea holds a lot of meaning for me. Seems like everything I create does. But that is as it should be. Because it all began at the feet of the beloved one’s who first put the glue and scissors in my tiny hands. And called my Paper Factory.
Do you feel creative when you are going through dark moods? It varies with me. There are times when the emotional pain gives birth to profound work, work that could not have escaped the confines of my mind without the catalyst of discomfort.
These pieces for me reveal their power in stages; usually I am so drained after a session that I don’t look at the results right away. When I do, it is often in the context of brushing against them during the course of mundane activity. Perhaps I ‘m folding laundry when I glance at a canvas propped up nearbly. Often I am startled by what I see, there are often subliminal messages and issues imbedded in the piece. At times the juxtaposition of pattern can trigger an emotional response, a gut response, if you will.
I often watch videos about human behavior, and about mental illness, psychiatry, psychology. Always searching for the why, for the trigger, some way to see my defects in a scientific way. Is the answer staring me in the face in my art? Ultimately, I do feel alone in my internal struggles as someone with PTSD and mental illness. I think that is true with all who have been misdiagnosed, misunderstood and mistreated by the medical profession, by friends and even by those we expect to understand the most, our own families.
Is it any wonder that I obsess? Who else cares about what I feel, really? Who else is in any position to do anything for me, to ease my pain? If I am alone in these four walls an I not then also alone in my own skull?
In answer, I know there is One who cares. I hope he understands my need to put the pain on the page. After all, is he not the greatest Artist of all? And who would know the inner workings of the machine better than the Mechanic?
I can not convey to you in words the full weight, the immensity or the intensity of the battles that rage in me. In my art maybe I can. At any rate, it comes out onto the canvas. If I would not let it pour out of my finger tips, it would pour out of my pores in the night to stain the bedclothes in all the colors of God’s rainbow…
But I will go lie awake, staring at the inside of my eyelids for an hour or so. Then I will get up at 7, feed the cats and dog, walk said dog, then come inside for a nice hot cup of coffee. Which I will simultaneously fall asleep in and spill all over my devices (and lap ) which will cause me to leap to my feet spewing expletives and banging my head on the light fixture. The light bulb will then shatter, causing splinters of glass and a wisp of mercury to float down into my oatmeal, which will make me swear louder, and, in a futile effort to save my breakfast I will then swipe the vintage bowl off the table ( using an admirable left hook maneuver) which will cause it to fly at a high rate of speed in a semi-downward trajectory into my favorite antique lamp. This lamp will fall to the left in a seemingly slow motion arc, tumbling into three collectible and highly prized ceramic vases which then cascade in a cacophony of tinkling noises onto my sleeping cat who reacts by leaping an incredible 4 feet in the air from a prone position, all four feet splayed wide with claws in full extension as he screams like a dying jackrabbit. In turn this bloodcurdling sound will awaken my neurotic and highly excitable one-eyed Shih-Tzu who suffers from an unusual condition called projectile elimination which then will violently erupt from both her mouth and anus in a vile torrent of hot $@#% that shoots onto my signed copy of “Jonathan Livingston Seagull” in one direction and all over a 17th century French tapestry in the other.
At this instant I will suddenly recall that I keep a loaded 357 in my bathroom medicine cabinet, right next to a full bottle of prescription pain killers, so I shall make a blisteringly fast lunge towards said bathroom. This will then cause my previously broken left ankle to twist, and the spilled coffee will assist in my falling with a huge OOMPH! sound onto my tile floor, cracking my head on the table edge on the way down. My efforts to retrieve aforementioned items undaunted, I will proceed down the hall still on my ass, using a beached alligator movement I saw on reels at 3:59 AM. Upon reaching the bathroom with my butt now covered in dust bunnys that clung to the spilled coffee, I will reach my right arm up and attempt to hoist myself to a standing position where I can teeter on one leg and root thru the medicine cabinet. However, unbeknownst to me, the commode has become loosened from its moorings in the 50 years since it’s instalation, and as a result will tip over on top of me and pour out all over the floor. Now in a blinding and sputtering rage that will see no reason, I miraculously leap to my feet fishing wildly for the bottle of morphine, and finding the pill bottle I swallow all 9 capsules. I then will feel the cold steel handle and stagger into the hallway, dead set on ending my misery, when I suddenly slip on the contents of the spilled toilet and feel myself falling again, clawing with one hand at the wallpaper on the way down. When I briefly regain consciousness I shall see in hazy detail and close proximity the label of the empty pill bottle which lay 2 inches from my nose. Incredibly I will read the word laxative on the line where pain relief should be, and at this very moment I will feel my bowels roil in protest. Crying out in my frustration and disbelief I then lift the object in my left hand, and with a quick prayer for mercy I shall pull the trigger and shut my eyes. When nothing happens I will look and see that I’m trying to end my life with a curling iron…
Out of the Gutter Art 
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