Out of the Gutter Art

Tag: forgiveness

  • FLASHBACK RODEO

    FLASHBACK RODEO

    Another Day at the Races

    ¡TRIGGER WARNING! This post deals with domestic violence, physical assault and ptsd flashbacks. Please use discretion!

    Ah, dear husband of mine. How you never leave me. I can remember your last punch like it was yesterday. Dear previous boyfriend; thanks so much for hitting me in the face so hard that you broke the hard contact lenses in both of my eyes. Oh, and for the chipped front tooth.

    Dear Ex-Fiance, the lovely memories of you stalking me never leave. I can still hear your trucks engine idling outside my bedroom window at 4 in the morning. A few weeks later you murdered your Dad, and yourself…

    And dear Husband of mine, how often I still hear your calling me “Stupid Bitch”, and can still feel your knee across my neck as my vision faded to black. I was sure I was dead, and I was glad. I would never again have to see the evil hatred in your eyes… But no, I wasn’t dead, I had six more years to live with you, memories of being stabbed, shot at and beaten unconscious. Oh, the memories…

       But I’m still here, after all this time. I’m alive, and my abusers are not. Maybe some still live, but I am free, and I am strong and I am beautiful.

       My God saved me from all of them.

       So, when the flashbacks come, and come they do…I know to hold on. Hold on tight to my faith. Hold on tight to what I know is real, and turn off the sights and sounds that rise up to try to torment me.

    My God loves me, and has put my feet on level ground. He has given me the priceless gift of a clean conscience, washed clean with the forgiveness purchased thru the life blood of his perfect Son. I am free of the chains of addiction, of abuse, and of my own self-loathing. I am grateful.  And free. Today was a hard day, in that the flashbacks came out to play. For whatever reason I was triggered , for a while.  But this day is over, successfully lived. I can rest me weary eyes and start fresh tomorrow…

    Head in the Clouds c. SusanTMartin2023

       I thank God for relieving me of the abusers, the abuse,  the sickness of thinking I deserved the terrible mistreatment I endured.

       It is a good feeling to care about myself…

    It has been a long road, including years of therapy and hard work.

       I hope I can help others find the courage to heal.

      

      

  • The Healing

    The Healing

    and The “Salvator” Mommy

    . (And THE LAVENDER CAT!)

    Being still is very difficult for me mentally. Having a racing mind is the natural state of being for me, anything else is alien and uncomfortable. If I’m flitting about inside I can leap away from my disturbing thoughts as soon as they appear- it’s a constant dance to keep the wolves at bay. My faith has helped tame the beasts lurking my memory’s deeply scarred terrain, knowing that there is a force for good stronger than the pull of caustic quicksand that daily tries to suck me in.

    Here is the divine painting now!

    I will dance this mental quick-step until death swallows me, the wounds of prolonged sexual abuse and violence are the deepest kind, years of therapy have given me some tools to offset the devastating effects of PTSD a bit. My Bipolar Disorder causes my synapses to fire differently than “normal” folk, this is proven by science, I believe this is a reason I am plagued so frequently by the flashbacks and memories.

    me standing tall at the recent ART HEALS show at The Arts Exchange, St Pete, FL.
    USA

    My art is my outlet to “talk” about my inner world, it facilitates compassion and understanding in some viewers. Others will still judge my moral failings, and when these judgements slap me in the face I am better able to stand rather than crumble.

    I recently was assaulted by an attempted character attack, called a liar and thief to my happy face-dashed by a loved one’s belief that I was still the person of 22 years ago when my addiction raged. It stunned me, unhinged me for a time- but I am bouncing back; hurt but not letting these untruths detail my sanity completely.

    . This is all I can write, the healing is still in progress. Thank God for my loving friends in high places who know my inner heart and the fact that 22 years of sobriety, therapy and spirituality allowed me to leave that dishonest personality long ago.

    A Quote in the INSIGHTS IV catalogue
    Me and Joyce Sang, co-founder of The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation, and my featured piece, Deep Running(framed in an acrylic box to highlight BOTH painted sides of the canvas!)

    I will paint and create art that reflects my journey, this soothes my troubled mind and gives me the most relief. Thank you so much for your continued support on my artistic journey

    “Salvator Mommy” Savior of Cat’s and Bipolar Daughters, Acrylic on gallery wrapped canvas
  • 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?

  • Chicken? or Pig? Just Flesh, please…

    Chicken? or Pig? Just Flesh, please…

    “What’s the Deal? Am I a Coward?”

    Where does it Hurt? Unmasking,©SusanTMartin2021W/P

    Commitment to put out my best work…not just work. To push my limits, expand my thought processes…remove boundaries.

    Flashback 937 ©SusanTMartin2017

    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…

    The Inheritance of Daughter’s ©SusanTMartin2018

    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
    • Angry Daughter by Susan T Martin
    • Isolationism ©SusanTMartin
    • Reaching Out, Acrylic on Canvas, Beginning Stages, Susan T. Martin 2017
    • “Visionaria”©SusanTMartin2018
    • The Sentinel’s Prayer , stage II,©SusanTMartin
    • The Duck Hunt ©SusanTMartin

    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.

    • Inside Voice
    • Cant Quiet Down
    • The Rummage Sale w/p ©Susan T Martin

    I hope that she can find some respite for her pain, too.

    2018 Insights II WINNING Entry! ” Crossing the Delaware, Well Aware”©SusanTMartin2018 in the Permanent Collection of The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation

  • This tiny GIANT Life of Mine!!!

    This tiny GIANT Life of Mine!!!

    I am Creating! In a wonderful whirlwind! Paint flying off brushes onto cement, metal, canvas and walls! Hot glue, super glue, elmers glue, whew!

    My work feels urgent, and it has for a while…secretly I have been feeling that my time here is limited, so I must hurry-make my mark while I can! Is it health concerns? Physical ones? Is my breath being sucked out of my lungs from the past abuse I put them thru? Each day feels less like breathing and more like drowning. Each step feels less like walking on the ground, more like sinking in the mire and sediment…

    I am urgent in my service to God, they need to know, they need to know! How good life can be, without the stone, the stick, the stem!! Do not drown that brain in pickling juice my young artist friend: FEEL IT, BREATH IT IN, PAINT IT, NAIL IT DOWN!!! NOWNOWNOW!!!!!!

    The life I took from myself has to be accounted for! I will account for it in dreams, in images, in COLOR! I have to let someone KNOW WHO I AM  before it evaporates, this little giant life of mine.

    Did I tell you about being snake bitten twice? Did I tell you about riding the rails with the train tramps? Did I tell you about living in the Sonoran Desert? Did you read my poems, my blog? My instagram feed?

    Do you know who I am?

    Look at me, I have lived.

     

     

     

     

     

  • Art on the Island 3-D Art Show

    Art on the Island 3-D Art Show

    win_20170212_14_16_52_proI was so thrilled to have 2 of my sculpture/assemblage pieces on display! As a new member of the Vero Beach Art Club, I was able to have my work in this exclusive show, and am so happy it was well received! I was not permitted to photograph any art except my own, which was disappointing but understandable to me, so I can’t share the other Phenomenal Artwork displayed. I saw AMAZING THINGS!, and am more motivated than ever to continue striving for my own best work…Onward and Upward!!  win_20170212_14_17_10_proOnly the foreground artwork, entitled “Lunar Rover” and assembled from a discarded floor lamp, broken concrete block, an antique German hunting horn, and many, many thing-a-ma-jigs, and whos-it-ma-bobs. The piece was well recieved and is still available for purchase! c.SusanToddMartin2017

    I also showed “Munson, a Treasured Friend”, which you have seen posted here multiple times. (I’ll post it one more time as it is still available for purchase. (A little background on “Munson”: I sculpted this Cat Head originally from a block of molded fine concrete, using traditional chisels. This was then coated with sealant and then painted with acrylics to match the markings of my mom’s beloved cat of 20 years. He was then decked out with treasured heirlooom vintage and costume jewelry, including semi-precious gems, gold and sterling. Each piece meant something to me, hand me downs from dear, departed loved ones and friends. I made this sculpture for a local art show, which required entries to be “treasure themed” , celebrating the “Treasure Coast” here in Florida. This area is so named for all the shipwrecks discovered off the coast of Vero Beach, Fort Pierce, Port Saint Lucie and Stuart, these vessels laden with gold and treasures gleaned from North America and destined for Spain and Europe.

    My creative process for this piece included images from old pirate and Sinbad movies, where chests full and overflowing with glistening jewels were depicted. These movies filled my childhood dreams, as did an unshakable love of my mother, who was my greatest treasure, and who I had recently lost to Cancer.

    In turn, Munson was her treasure, ever a comfort in her troubled life, who lay by her side, faithfully, as she fought , and finally succumbed to cancer.

    I hope you enjoy Munson, knowing, as you now do, how much love he carries beneath all his gleaming sparkles!

     

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    Sorry about the sound, I’m not sure why it buzzes. It does not do that when I view the video in my pc’s media app… But enjoy this anyway! (please, and Thank You!)