I am an Artist, Poet and Author. I am so much more than this: I feel like a tiny seed that sprouted in a desert, and now has grown into a Passion Vine. My Art is my Voice, Screaming, Crying, Praying, Loving, Laughing, Healing- all in Riotous Color…
I have made another financial blunder , it seems. I make them frequently, so Im not surprised. Just like I am not surprised that I locked my keys in my car this afternoon while parked under a huge Osprey Nest. So, right when I shut the door I heard “SPLAT” !!! I could not comprehend what was happening for a minute… I looked at all the white splatters running down the side of my car and wondered where all that paint had come from… Was I the victim of road rage? I looked at the white splatters on the pavement as I turned in a perplexed circle, dazed. I kept tugging on my locked door handles while peering thru the splattered window at my keys sitting in the center console…Right next to the phone I would need to call for help. Sigh…
When I heard the loud bird laughter overhead I came out of my stupor. Thank goodness the supermarket let me call my old auntie who in turn let me use her AAA roadside assistance. I waited just a matter of minutes for the locksmith to pull up and I showed him where My car was. I could not figure out why he was laughing so hard, until he told me he had been there just an hour earlier to unlock a guys car…IN THE SAME PARKING SPOT!!!
I felt SO MUCH BETTER!
So, now I’m tired. I will come back tomorrow and tell you about NOT setting up my new art store, and losing over 100 dollars simultaneously… You will enjoy that comedy of errors as well!!!
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!!
The results are in, and I didn’t make the cut again this year. It’s ok, though, surprisingly. I don’t feel my cheeks burning with shame; that subsided a few minutes ago… Last year I really took it hard, and hid under the covers for a day, feeling utterly cast aside and trampled on. Today my chin didn’t even quiver!
I suddenly have an overwhelming urge to consume a large quantity of chocolate. Or ice cream… Or CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM!!!
it’s always here- even before I open my eyes. Reverberating. Agonizing in it, I try to back away from it, back into my dreams. It is futile. The reality encroaches, angry at being left waiting.
. My eyes reluctantly open, brows already furrowed. I will certainly have that deep furrow between my eyes soon, like Mother had. I probably have it already, just cant see well enough with these old glasses to notice it.
KODAK Digital Still Camera
It is time to arise, fight to my feet, let the outside air in, feed my little animal friends. a day awaits, full of promise, if only I look past the physical realm, into the spiritual. This is a choice, a new choice I will make every day from now on, as long as I am able to open my eyes. will I succeed every day? No, I’m sure I won’t. But I can decide, at any point in my wakeful state, to turn to my Higher Power and ask for help.
I can remember when Sobriety was new to me, and being without drugs or drink felt like walking with nerves on the outside of my skin. The day to day grind seemed impossible, but I made it. For each day of the last 24 years I have made it, one day at a time. I will make it thru this pain , now.
KODAK Digital Still CameraKODAK Digital Still Camera
I have different “visions ” I hold close, no, not some profound spooky kind. I mean real images that I have seen that take me to a calm and happy place inside myself. I had so many horrific experiences foisted upon me in years past that I took these memory “snapshots. One of these is from lying on my back in our Florida backyard, under this HUGE oak tree. Lying there , looking up thru the leaves and branches, to the bluest of blue skies, and the whitest of white clouds sailing past. when I am having a procedure or operation done, I put this vision right in front of my closed eyes, letting it play like a beautiful movie.
There can be no fear or pain then. It cant get in.
Lavender Moon, c.2016STMMoon Halo 2, C. Susan T. Martin
Tonight it was good for me to find this old draft. I started writing it back in 2022, and had left off at the sentence about my furrowed brows. I decided that I can change that narrative, make this post not about pain, but about COPING with it. sometimes all it takes for me to feel better is a teensy shift in vantage point, to where I’m not focused on my reflection, but rather focused on the enormity of this glorious Earth, and the loving Creator who made it for me.
I have new endeavors ahead of me now, an opportunity to start a business, and I am running with the ball this time. There is So much life left to live, love to share and beautiful art to create. Pain is temporary…love is eternal.
Maybe something I have shared has touched you in some way, a good way, I hope. I wish you the very best.
What motivates you to create your art? When you hit a snag, where do you go to get your spark back?
If I’m not careful, when I hit a slump I binge watch murder documentaries… Not good creative fodder. That just brings out negative vibes for me. So what I do instead is watch Art Documentaries. Now, these fire me up! If I watch one about the “Great Masters” then I want tp paint classical images, channeling Michelangelo…If I watch one about The Impressionists, then Pissaro is my guy, or Monet. How about Gaugin, well, the greens and oranges start to flow…Endless beauty, endless motivation…
I’m having surgery on my left wrist tomorrow morning. So I wont be creating much art for a day or so. But I am going to consume a bunch of art. Feed my inner Artist.
They say pain is a great motivator. In many respects this can be true. It may move a person to action, to find some kind of relief.
. My pain is often physical, I have found some relief in Doctor prescribed medication. For the mental anguish that accompanies the physical discomfort, I create art.
Due to some unfortunate occurrences in the past months, my physical pain has escalated to nearly unbearable proportions. The physical recovery is ongoing; my output of art has increased exponentially in response to the mental damage this event has caused.
This pain is a catalyst for change, and due to new physical challenges I have had to make adjustments in my methods. So frustrating…
. I will be ok, eventually. This event has knocked me back, but not out. I am climbing out of this darkness. Thank you for being a source of encouragement, my loyal friends…
Waiting for my pen, for my brush. I just cant stand the barrenness of it, stretching of into the infinite distance, saying nothing.
I cant sit in silence either, in a social setting. I would be awful in an interrogation, babbling mindlessly- wait… not mindlessly. I do get chatty, but I always have something to say. The word “mindless” comes from tapes of a past life, a life that included words like “stupid”, “silly”, “crazy” and “dumb”. I am none of those things.
It is 26 years now since I was physically with my last abuser, 24 years since my last drink, my last drug. I have worked tirelessly these past two and one half decades to become the real person I am today. It is truly a beautiful thing to be alive and in this space.
I could wax poetic about my own marvelousness, (after all I am pretty cool…) but I would rather talk about you. You, my fellow human, out there wishing and wanting. I know it’s hard being you. I know you have reasons for not trying. put that aside for one moment, and give yourself a chance to succeed.
I had someone tell me once, I think it was a person in AA, “Do the next right thing”
THE NEXT RIGHT THING
It will be the thing that raises your head up. The thing that makes you wipe your tears away. The thing that you do to believe in goodness again, the goodness inside you. You have not wasted time on this journey, that is not possible, because it took everything that came before to be right here, right now.
I am really surprised that I feel as good as I do. Years upon years of hating myself, hating my life, hating society. I was angry and hard, and reveled in the pain. It was such a lonely place, even though I was surrounded my all kinds of angry people just like me. We all roared and growled together in our ugliness. I never saw myself surviving, never saw a way out. So I never tried. I believed all the lies I was told, I was a loser, a basket case, a burn out.
I thought I loved my abuser, my “friends”, my family. I thought I was loved in return. But in reality, I had no concept of love. I thought it was possession, ownership. I had so many misconceptions, and they kept me in chains.
So what changed, what happened that let me get out of that life? A series of events I never saw coming. A prayer answered that I thought I could no longer utter. A forgiveness so vast and profound that I finally felt the love and acceptance I was looking for my entire life. I allowed my God in. I told him how broken I was. and I asked him to lead me thru the maze.
That was all I knew to ask. I was lost in a jungle and needed someone to lead me out, into the light.
That was many years ago, and I have lived thru many heartaches, lost my loved ones, suffered major life upheavals and felt unimaginable pain. Just like we all have. But I don’t hate myself anymore. I am not desolate and lost anymore. I feel the joy of true friendship, and I have learned how to be a true friend.
Please, my friend, keep pushing on. You will find the light. You matter. You are loved even though you may not believe it yet. There is always a reason to live, just do the next right thing. If you picked that needle up again, put it down again. I cant tell you how many times I tried and failed. But somehow I found a way to try again. You really are worth every effort.
This is the call prospectus; I will somehow communicate visually to you (since I am a visual artist) the feeling of being Bipolar. My inner workings, tickings, thinkings: the fears and joys, ups and downs, backward-and-forward loves and hates…ALL the fuzzies , and the rough edges, swirly thoughts and bumps in the road BLOCKS.
In living color. Will it be beautiful? Perhaps in the fact that I am pouring myself into the page, translating feelings like a electric current running thru my heart to yours. Can it be done? Yes, because that IS what I do, always, in my art. Not to say the feelings come across in all my work to each and every viewer, but it is ultimately what motivates me to create.
. I AM a Bipolar Creative, and I am compelled to create to express this state of being.
“Oh, it’s so easy for you to paint things.”
Is it? Anyone can learn to create a likeness, with practice and will.
But no one can squeeze their very essence into a creative work the way I do without strong emotion, taxing effort, mental strain, soaring delight and, at times, great agitation and even physical pain. Yes, I have heard other Artists, many technically great and successful who purport no emotional contortions are necessary to create great art.
That is not true for me.
My art soothes my frantic racing brain which runs away at breakneck speed when certain conditions are met. Or the melancholy, dark days when I seek the relief of soothing, deep blues and greens..
Yes, I do love this Bipolar life of mine, and I’m glad to be who I am. I am proud to share myself in my art. I hope it helps a friend some future day, to put their feelings on the page…
Out of the Gutter Art 
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