Out of the Gutter Art

Tag: dreams

  • The Mural Dream of a Cool Kid

    The Mural Dream of a Cool Kid

    THE MURAL DREAM

    DOOR MURAL , 2018
    DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018
    DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018
    SHED MURAL IN PROGRESS
    Mural Idea, 2016
    SHED MURAL PROGRESS)
    Reaching Out, acrylic on canvas, Work in Progress, Susan T. Martin 2017
    Last Years Insights II WINNING Entry!
    A long way from painting on bridges, but I still long for a blank wall!!

    Mural painting is fine art today. Just as great frescoes in the days of Michelangelo, and centuries before, large scale art is an artist’s dream. Is that why children inevitable write in crayon on the playroom walls?

    I am sure of this: As long as I have been able to appreciate fine art and my burning desire to depict what I see thru it: I have wanted to paint murals. At times, in my youth, I exercised this need, painting in spray enamel on any available wall in the dead of night. “HELLO WORLD!” in six foot tall red letters over a grinning, fanged 30 foot tall caricature, scrawled on an underpass along I-95 southbound. Painted in 1985, before the Interstate had even made it to West Palm beach. Ah, what satisfaction to drive by it in the backseat of Dad’s Mazda, grinning silently.

    These were days before I heard of graffiti culture, I was a transplant to the largely undeveloped east coast of Florida an hour north of Fort Lauderdale. These were the days when the County Sherriff had bricks of coke and bales of weed being dropped on his private airstrip a few miles north of my house. I hung out with a bunch of dudes who owned a race car shop, building mid-engine Mustangs and drag racing on Glades Cut-off Road.

    Before Race-day one weekend, the boys let me use all the leftover spraypaint in the shop to paint huge murals of fire breathing dragons and heavy metal chicks everywhere. I was high on life, and probably paint fumes and Columbian gold. What a rush, the guys all in amazement at my grand design. Now I was a real artist, a legend at the shop, “The Girl Who Painted Barrel Road “. Now I knew how Michelangelo must have felt when he unveiled the Sistine Chapel for the Pope! (Unveiled it? How, exactly?) Well, anyway, it felt cool.

    FASTFORWARD NOW, 25 years clean and sober, a professionally recognized fine artist in my own right. Now living in St. Petersburg, Florida which hosts the annual “SHINE” mural festival, an event which brings mural artists and fans from all over the globe, and I’m still dreaming.

    I know it will happen, I will have a wall to call my own. I will keep pushing, keep striving, keep believing. After all, I was born on the sixth day of March- the same day as Michelangelo!

  • An Artist’s Realization:

    An Artist’s Realization:

    Stepping Off

    What did I dream of then ? The freedom to create new art, better art than anyone had done before. I dreamt of sculpture, glorious-creamy-marble-gleamy sculpture. Human form expressed in visions of living flesh to make one weep.

    Pushing the limits of what had gone before, finessing my gift to a razor fine point that would etch images so tantalizing that Albrecht Durer would be green with envy. I had no doubt in my teenage grandiosity that these goals were within my reach, I knew I was “that good”. All the tools were laid before me, I believed they would always be freely given by a grateful world, an appreciative audience who would grease my path to slide into the role of a modern day Michelangelo, only in female form.

    KODAK Digital Still Camera

    Perhaps I dreamed a bit large, but how wonderful to entertain such beliefs! With no guardrails to hem in my imagination my art soared, with no thought to the cost of materials or the the limiting exhaustion that real world work brings.

    Well, guess what? I am making those dreams a reality today. I found someone who is willing to give me a chance, an opportunity to learn from his experience. I gathered my courage and kept asking, even when it seemed like I was getting nowhere. After following up on a suggestion a local CAD artist made to seek out this artist (thank you Alex!); I am proud to say I am learning from metal artist Frank Strunk III.

    My dreams are NOT dead, I AM following my passion. I have the drive and vision, now with a little funding I will be soaring again! Soaring! On riveted metal wings, in welded metal carriages, in sculpted hot-air balloons and on the backs of giant imaginary sea creatures! Watch me soar, man!!!

  • *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…