Out of the Gutter Art

Tag: bipolar artist

  • A Long Lost Love

    A Long Lost Love

    I love etching. I haven’t done a “real” etching in about 40 years; since high school. We had a brand new state-of-the-art printing press. It had been installed in 1978 and here I was, a couple years later in advanced art classes with the finest teacher I ever had, Mr. O’Hara. At the time I did not think I liked the man, he was always on my case, pushing me and prodding me to expand my horizons. All I wanted to do was get high and draw my trippy burnout monsters. These were the days of Frank Frazetta and Heavy Metal The Movie; my dreams were filled with animation and album covers. But Mr. O’Hara had this printing press. And he intended to make me use it.

    First it was wood cuts. Hmmmm…This was pretty cool. One block, lots of options, different colors, placements and copies! Prints everywhere! I had written a poem about a nuclear holocaust, Mr. O’Hara had us make a book…I was impressed, and so were my Peers and parents. Which was unbelievable, they never turned the TV off long enough to know what color my hair was any given month. (It was many different colors, but not like today. We just had blue/black and red and blonde… I tried them all.) Getting back to the printing press, my curiosity was really piqued. Then we did a lino cut…again, very cool. I was into it now. Then he gave us some history and some homework.

    Etching. Renaissance. Rembrandt. Etching. Albrecht Durer. Zinc Plate etchings. I was enthralled: Oh the detail. The crazy details. It was better than smoking dope! I am so grateful today to have had the chance to be taught by Mr. O’Hara. I have often wished I could contact him and thank him for pushing me. He really cared, and I will always be indebted to him for seeing who I could be.

    yesterday’s piece: Too Soon to Yo Mama (Tucson to Yuma

    These pieces aren’t etchings, they are oil pastel sgrafitto. To me, though, they have the feel of etchings. The tiny lines, intricate detail. Not like a finished etching, but those wonderful moments when you are scratching the eensy-weensy picture onto the plate. I have even gone so far as to ‘etch’ a lamp globe and a mannequin in the past few years! Oh, the long lost love of mine!!

    .

  • A Power Play Please

    A Power Play Please

    Do something! Say something! Move a muscle, change a thought!

    All seems to be running smoothly-till it’s not, and it’s not; right now.

    How? Every thing seemed peachy-‘seemed’ being the operative word here. I seem like I’m young and beautiful-but is it truly the case? It ‘seems’ nice and comfortable outside-until you open the door and the 100°, 90% humidity slaps you around. Then it ‘seems’ like you are dying of heat stroke(which you may actually be if you don’t wise up and dash back inside).

    I have been on this couch for hours. Hours! I wake up, try to get up. Ponder it for a few dazed minutes. Then, with a sigh, I melt back into the blanket, squishing my head into the pillow, praying for alertness to magically reach in and yank me into an energized reality. It has yet to. Although, I must admit I did rise long enough to walk Kleo, feed the cats, her, and me. Then, drawn into the couch’s magnetic field I succumbed again.

    Someone may say, oh, you must need the sleep. Your body knows what it needs. No, I humbly disagree. My body knows how to seek a place to hibernate, sinking into the very fibers if this sofa till only my hands and feet will be left on the surface. Mute witnesses to the me that once was.

    I must fight this lesser nature, fill my mind with the memories of zestful living, long for that movement, yearn for that freedom, strain to break free!!

    When will living feel like less of an epic battle? Probably never. Does that mean I should give in, give up, throw in the proverbial towel? No! The opposite: FIGHT, SISTER!! THROW OFF THAT STRANGLING BLANKET! RISE UP AND FIGHT FOR ANOTHER DAY!

    Whew!! Ok! Ok, I will, I AM! I am motivated, I am engaged, I am leaping back into life!

    In…just…a…minute. Right now…yawn!…I think I’ll just stretch out for one second…just…one…sec…

    • The Bizarre Hunter
    • Passed On©STMartin2010
    • “A Big Beak”(detail)©STMartin2019
    • Susan Past ©STM2018
  • A “No” Blow to the Ego!

    A “No” Blow to the Ego!

    Did it hurt? No, of course not. (well, just a wee bit, maybe…)

    Oh, the joys of waiting to hear if you got the “Call”. That’s what we artists refer to when we apply for a chance to get into a show, or to paint a mural, or design a sculpture, etc. It’s a process fraught with anxiety, not for the faint of heart. Not for the empty of pocket, either.

    This last one did not cost me anything to apply to, which was good, because I did not get it. I am always disappointed when I don’t get in a show, it is a fact of life in the art world. I am becoming a bit cynical and jaded about this. I find myself making snide remarks(to myself) about favoritism and prejudice, and I don’t like this kind of negative thinking. On the one hand I think it’s just a self-soothing mechanism-if I say the process is unjust it means that my work really is the best. That I really should have been chosen.

    Work in Progress for past 3 years!

    I don’t think this is a good way for me to look at it. This kind of attitude will just make me negative about the whole process, the art community as a whole, and make me just as prejudiced as the people I am judging. Don’t think I’m saying what anyone else should think or feel, I just know how my quirky little mind works. My father spent his life feeling jaded and cynical about “the System”, and it reached the point where no one wanted to hear him go on about it.

    I mean, just think about how the poison could seep into my art. If I’m second guessing the judges then maybe I will not try as hard, not push myself. Perhaps I’d rather not try, because they “don’t like me”. Or “they won’t pick me anyway.” Or “they only choose the society types”. If I let those thoughts in then my wings stay folded and I don’t try to fly, even when the cage door is open.

    Fly birdie, fly!!!!

    No, I didn’t get the call because someone else did. Period. No trying to mind read. No presuming I wasn’t chosen for a reason. How about remembering all the times I have been chosen, when another artist got passed over. Or how about knowing that my work is excellent, but different than what the judges were looking for.

    I must create my best work no matter what the call, or even if there is NO call. My art comes from a deep and secret place far inside, not to be pissed out at the whim of a stranger. Sure, a call may motivate me, but ultimately my satisfaction must come from creating.

    I remember being a little kid in art school, hiding my drawing from the other kids, because my work was so special that I had to protect it. I didn’t hide it because it was not good, I hid it so they could not copy it. It was the most special thing about me, a super power before any one knew about superpowers. I could make up any little dream and put it on a page and no one else could ever do it the same way. I wish I had a nickel for all my little fantasy doodles. I’m smiling as I remember.

    I drew for the sheer joy of watching my inner world pour out the tip of my pen. I inhabited those secret worlds, where I was always “ok”. I did not need a prize, a ribbon, a write up in the paper. And the wonderful thing is that I still don’t need it. Over the past seven years that I have been showing my work my focus had turned to the idea of money. Making money from my art.

    Not because I needed it, but because I am supposed to want that! I bought into the sales model. The websites that shout at me to join this or that marketing plan. Sell your art here! Make 5 grand a week! Be your own boss! While focusing on the money I began to sweat the call results. Did I get in to that show? What is the payout? How are the prizes broken down? What a bunch of joy-squishing nonsense!

    I could see trying to make an impression on my Dad, but I knew he would never see me even when he was alive. Well, he sure can’t see me now, so I can quit trying to impress the family with my wealth ! I’m so glad we had this talk! Thanks for listening!

    (No, I did not get the “Call for the Wall”, but I now have the coolest spare bugroom, um, bedroom, in the entire city !)

  • Turning My Art on it’s Head

    Turning My Art on it’s Head

    ” Trying to turn heads while my head is turned…”

    In Plain Sight/ Insane, Right? ©Susan T. Martin”The Party’s Over”

    Hi, fellow Art fanatics! I’m very glad you are able to visit me here. This isolation is wearing heavily on my battered little brain. Please tell your friends who love a good laugh, interesting art and insight into head injury coupled with a Bipolar Disorder diagnosis. It can get loud in here! I welcome the visitors, and also love to read your comments.

    The fall I took 2 weeks ago has left a dent (it’s OK to laugh, I am-even when it hurts!) in my work production. I am dealing with BPPV* symptoms and they are fierce. I finally realized my exhaustion is more than depression again, so after forcing myself to clean house at 1:30AM, I performed the Eppley maneuver. I bent to the left this time, as I could actually discern more pain and pressure when I leaned that way, and sure enough I incurred violent vertigo and headache. The therapy helped: I am able to post this and am enjoying a cup of hot cocoa, with mini marshmallows.

    This inner drive I have, the endless pressure to do more, do better…it can be so toxic when I am battling a disability. It makes me furious that I am limited in any way, and coupled with my overwhelming need for approval causes me major doubts about my ability as an artist. It’s so crazy, because I can see the art I put out-endlessly, constantly, incredibly- day after day. I see that I do things no one else can do, I read the praises people post, I hear the kind words of the curators and collectors…but I still feel like a child…that little girl with a broken pencil hiding her picture from everyone.

    I have come to expect these days of self doubt. Days when the critics come out of the cheap paneling, surrounding me, poking me with long, blue fingers: “Is that all you can do?” ” What’s that supposed to be?” “My brother draws better than you…”

    What the &%#$? is going on? Why must my mind be tormented as well as my body? Why?

    Why?

    *BPPV stands for Benign Paroxysmal Positional Vertigo which can result from a Traumatic Brain Injury.

    I know why… it’s a battle that has raged down thru the ages… And it may be that secret ingredient that pushes us to create something, some day, of true and lasting greatness. Will I? Perhaps, perhaps not-but I will never quit trying. Maybe that is my best work yet.

    “Welcome to the Sunshine State, Mr. Ponce de Leon!” ©SusanTMartin 8/10/21
  • Calling Down thru the Centuries

    Calling Down thru the Centuries

    • “Visionaria”sold
    • “Exquisite Aloneness” work in progress
    • Reaching Out, acrylic on canvas, Work in Progress, Susan T. Martin 2017

         Tracing a Trail of Tears…

       The Trail, so long ago. Now see the traces of hot tears down our dusty cheeks. Feel the same blood pumping thru these veins as in those:

        Red like the purest ruby, and it will pour forth if you cut us. Your words cut like the edge of a knife, a ruby red blade across a human throat.

       Do not gloat, you who know the glut of Buffalo meat, blood red heart still beating in hand, Son of man.

        A man of the Sun, of the People, the Black Hills, the Antelope Valley…The Mohawk mountains, man.  The salmon-colored sands of the Sonoran Desert.

       We chased the sidewinder, ran with roadrunners. Our feet bled walking empty highways, empty citrus groves, riding empty boxcars.

       We are women, tired and beaten. Down the tears ran like the scars on our back, scars on our heart.

       Where are you, raven-haired brother? Do you hear me , calling across the centuries?   

       Does my black mother bear my sorrow, black Mother-bear?

        Alone now; my voice reaches all the way around this broken bowl of me

       The wind washes the empty, clay basin of my soul…

       I am not whole-I wholly am not holy, man.

       Holy man, what is better than this sweet sorrow?

       Or more bitter medicine than this abiding pain, Medicine man?

  • In the Arms of Angels: Rise Up

    In the Arms of Angels: Rise Up

    Taking a Memory in a New Direction

    I’ve been living with PTSD for a couple of decades now, many years. Many years… There has been miles of road covered in my healing journey, at times I feel as if I have dragged my body over continents of rough terrain. I am road weary and saddle sore. I have a sense of who I could have been, if my road had been kinder. This does not grieve me as much as it used to, I don’t mourn as much, but I do get caught up in the quicksand of the past now and then. These days I know what tools to use to work myself free, even if I do drag some dirt along for a while. I have a support network to do a deep cleaning when needed.

    But my trauma never truly ever leaves. It just gets rammed back into it’s footlocker faster, and I keep more cinder blocks around to pile on top. When the stink seeps out I open the windows, pull out a fresh canvas and paint till the air clears. Ahh, how clarifying. Washing the walls of my mind with ‘Spic and Span’, that excellent cleanser of bygone days. When the walls of my childhood home were turning brown from nicotine, Mother would open a box, make a batch of suds in a bucket and with some hard work (and many smoked cigarettes) she would turn those rooms from gloom to gleam! (Damn, I can turn a phrase !)

    Some of us are just born ad men (and women)

    Anyway, that’s what creating my art does for my broken mind. So, when this call came out, “Rise Up, Remembering 9/11” I had serious emotions bubble to the surface. My memories of that day are not of one who was there, or who lost a loved one, a family member, a daughter, son, beloved husband or wife, a dear friend or even a colleague. My memories are the memories of collective, enormous grief and horror.

    Detail of Flashback 937

    How could this horror be reframed in any meaningful way? Dare I even intrude on someone else’s trauma to say how I have healed? What could I show, thru my art, that might help someone hurt one smidgen less? I have just come out of creating my most painful work to date…a painting you watched come to fruition here and on IG. That piece tore my heart out and tears are mingled in the paint. This piece was going to hurt to.

    I remember sitting in the darkness of my lonely room, watching videos of the towers, before they fell. Feeling guilty for watching, but needing to see the reality of what they were experiencing. Watching them clinging to window frames as the billowing jet-fueled fires raged at their backs. I was their mother, their wife, their sister, tears pouring from my eyes, mouth open matching their silent appeals for a miracle please GodpleaseGodPLEASEGODSAVETHEM SAVEUS SAVEME!!!

    Detail Flashback 937Reworked

    Then their hand is forced by the pain, or they make their decision and leap…l e a p…into oblivion. I gasp…time seems to stand still as they let go…slowly, they fall, like beautiful leaves in a September wind, suitcoats flutter, white shirts billow, sensible shoes on beautiful bloody feet, top side up, bottoms up, arms akimbo, embracing the darkness rushing at them at terminal velocity. I am them, What do I feel? Do I feel? Will I feel? Bye Mom, bye Johnny, bye Laura…

    I close my laptop, sobbing silently, drying my snotty nose on the bedclothes…I feel guilty,dirty, like I just did drugs or had sex. Was I depraved to watch that? Was it forgivable. Maybe it was like the people who watched me get beat, not calling for help, just watching. No, I could not have helped, no one could. Wait a minute…

    I could help now. I could change the picture! It was like a time machine! I could send an angel! A strong, loving , beautiful angel-radiant and shining- to intercept her in midair! Because that’s what really happened, right? Yes. YES!

    This is Rising Up! A New Direction!

    It is a Work in Progress, and a humble beginning, but this is what I missed that day…this is what really happened…

    *note* John5:28,29 this gives me comfort*

  • *UPDATE*Hello Fellow Fellows of Art

    *UPDATE*Hello Fellow Fellows of Art

    The Water Plant (sold) ©SusanTMartin2019

    ******To all my dear friends who were worrying about me, I am doing fine and I did have a Covid test 4 days after I first felt sick, and it came out negative! So, yay, for that, and yay for feeling so much better! I hope this finds you all doing well, coping with the turmoil around us by creating beautiful, strange and titillating works of art, in whatever manner your little hearts desire! (As long as no injury on any other living thing is involved!) I find that my art allows me to travel far beyond the confines of my tiny abode, far beyond the paltry and ordinary lives of the teeming hordes of addicts and vagabonds outside my door, far beyond the lunatic fringe…to a place so grand and majestic that even now-this very instant-I am transported to a wonderland, a vista of imagine-able delight. My imagination, my wonderland…show me, tell me, dance me…your vision!*****

    Undercurrents by Susan Todd Martin

    I have left you all hanging for a long time, and we were getting along famously… I hope we can again. I have been coping with some major health issues. An awful fall this past Monday night, a night in the hospital. Diagnosed with a ‘Wrenched Neck” which the Dr commented, ” You are the only person I’ve ever met whose neck is in worse shape than mine”. He had 3 levels fused at John’s Hopkins, I’m 3-7 at St. Lucie Med. Center.

    Passed On©STMartin2010

    He said I absolutely did the right thing calling the ambulance, the blow to the head and terrible twist of my neck could have been life threatening.

    So there’s that.

    Then, to add insult to near death experience, I contracted what I think may be Covid. It started Wednesday and has been beating me senseless ever since. Not like any flu, much more pain and headache, dizziness, stomach pain and toilet issues, terrible tiredness, bone aches, muscle spasms…I could go on but why? I’m not going to die, I had both shots thank God.

    The Insomniac’s Dream by STodd Martin2021

    I can definitely see how this could kill someone if the got the full on version. It has me whimpering. Its Sunday and my fever is down, and no funny smell in my nose or taste in my mouth. That was the first symptom, but it didn’t occur to me right away. I thought the neighbor was burning something, or I had a short somewhere. Then I had an awful taste in my mouth, nothing tasted right. Not even things I like.

    That’s what cinched it for me, right before a truck hit me…of course it was Friday night when I was at the peak of whatever this is. And CDC advice said don’t go to hospital if you can get better at home. I took my phones to bed with me so I could call 911.

    Even wrote a goodbye letter… Crazy, huh?

    Chalk Painting, just for fun, on my driveway.8/3/2021

    Gotta rest now. I’ll call my Doc and get tested tomorrow. Later…

  • Adventures of a Cross-Eyed Girl

    Adventures of a Cross-Eyed Girl

    Nobody wants to go thru this… NOBODY.

    Even lying down my head still spins…

    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…