Slinking out, an arm entwines/ while in my head a dream unwinds /My vision blurs as visions come/ I feel speech slide off my tongue/ It floats away unheard, unread/ I swim out further, the sea my bed.
Octo-eel emeralds, such glistening fish/ you filet the flesh, I’ll eat, we’ll wish/ Wish to rise on yonder shore/when sirens’ call can drown no more.
Someone I loved floats slowly by/ now I feel that last goodbye/ People are beautiful when they drown/ soft hair floats just like a crown/ glorious flaxen, warmest brown. Their clothes billow/ they sink down.
Turquoise water-clear as conscience/ I see way back in my past/ teaching me your strange science/ my heartstrings lash me to your mast/ we must batten down the hatches for the tide’s receding fast!
My grief runs to blackened sea/ Do you ever think of me?/ I miss you too, more than the last/ Has any other bait been cast? Will my arms endure this battle ? Will this vessel be rent in two?/ I will never know the answer/ till love runs me through and thru
Soon we will finally have peace , enough for everyone, everywhere. No more fighting or hatred. Love will prevail, goodness will triumph. And I will be with my loved ones again.
So I will hold on, just a little while longer. ALL the prophecies WILL come true. And I will be with you, again. Forever.
A guy can be going along so well, everything chugging along, when suddenly; the bottom falls out of the world. Just when it seemed like smooth sailing.
Is that shocking to me? Shouldn’t be. I’ve felt like Wile. E Coyote many times. This time was different. This time is different.
Until the day comes that I can speak, I will paint. I will draw. And I will carry the Hurt. But it WILL NOT defeat me.
DOOR MURAL , 2018DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018DETAIL, DOOR MURAL, 2018SHED MURAL IN PROGRESSMural Idea, 2016SHED MURAL PROGRESS)Reaching Out, acrylic on canvas, Work in Progress, Susan T. Martin 2017Last 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!
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!!!
Tenacity… That is a good word. Grab onto something and if its what you dream of doing then hold on with both hands. You might get tossed off of your dream, or thrown off course, don’t you worry. You have GOT this!!
Facilitating Understanding the LINK /between\Trauma and CREATIVITY thru PUBLIC ART!
Hello Fellow Artists and Freak Show Fans! I am Susan Todd Martin of Out Of The Gutter Art. I would like to ease your mind: Feel free to just enjoy my art.
A JOYFUL SOLD CRAB !
Fun Little Projects from my Past!
If you want to learn about Creativity and the Bipolar Brain, I am the Artist to talk to. First, I would like to give you a brief overview of my history as it relates to my Art. Born in the mid 60’s to “Hip and Groovy” parents, I seemed a healthy , happy kid. A natural creative powerhouse from the womb, I was given the nickname “Paper Factory”; inevitably I would have a small pile of construction paper, crayons and Legos around me, and those tiny snub-nose scissors nearby. (I also earned the nickname “Runs With Scissors” a bit later in life.) All seemed fine, but there were some glitches. I was extremely sensitive. To a raised voice, any sign of parental disproval, any hint of anger or discord had me on high alert. I actually feltfor everybody.
I became a little clown, a distraction for my dysfunctional family-my antics could stop a row, halt an argument, make them all love each other again. Looking back I feel the deep pain even now. Because there was a lot of hatred in my family. Seeping it’s green, vile, snakey way thru the fabric of our lives. It’s not necessary to recite the bad things, you know. Little kids are Hurt, little girls are Hurt, teenage girls, biker chicks, addicts, alcoholics, wives. I’ve been all of them and I’ve been hurt. My Art and I participate in Art Shows featuring Survivors of Sexual Assault for Suncoast Center’s Rape/Crisis Center each year, and my Art and I are featured in Film and print in their Advertising. The prestigious Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundation has held annual INSIGHTS Art Exhibitions showcasing the Work of Bipolar Artist like me, and I am honored to have received Grants and had my Art placed in their Permanent Art Collection for three consecutive years. Amanda Copper, curator of The Morean Arts Center Facilitated my Solo Pop Up Show entitled ‘Susan T. Martin , A Survivor’s Story during National Sexual Assault Awareness Month in 2019.
As a Survivor, these Artistic achievements just make me so grateful to the Mental Health Professionals whose years of study gives Bipolar persons hope of a full, healthy life today. My God, of course being my Greatest Healer, Advocate and “Fine”Art Instructor. Very fine, indeed.
The ART, tho’. The ART! This is the way to heal! Here is the path to freedom for my pent up pain. Out it comes, flowing rivers of shapes, colors, symbols, emotions. Painting me, painting my surroundings, even painting my housewares with brilliant currents of light! My PTSD flashbacks are soothed, my mania lessened by the act of creatingArt.
The Journey is the exciting part, and what I want to encourage you, dear reader and fellow creative, to embark on. All the years my creativity had been held down, all the years I was not letting the light flood into my heart, these are the years and days and hours I want you to SEIZE !!
We don’t have to be famous, or rich, or retired to unleash the joy our creativity evokes! Invest a few bucks in one really good Micron pen. Buy an inexpensive sketch pad to keep in the car. What about an adult coloring book, or a KIDS coloring book. That’s what I’m talkin’ ’bout friend!! The excitement we had when the teacher would set those brand new boxes of crayons out… And the sheaf of bright construction paper! Remember the smell of the art room? Or the feel of the little blue smocks? Did you look over your classmates shoulder… Or were you hiding your drawing like I was?
For me, I need to BE that KID again sometimes. Actually, quite often. And it keeps me riding “between the ditches” like they say up in East Cackalackey!
Let’s Get Busy and Have some Creative Fun!! Whoopee!!
You will find, whether here on this Website, or on Instagram, or Etsy; in the Artists Organizations I am a member of, in the local Studios and Venues of Saint Pete’s Art Districts, even in my little garden and humble studio- I am just full of it, and I want to share it with you!
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and do something brave. I have been sharing my Bipolar Diagnosis for years here on Out of the Gutter Art. But I wonder if you, dear reader, are becoming jaded by the sheer number of people, creatives and otherwise, who throw the term “Bipolar” around like it is a type of claim to fame?
Do you ever wonder if the peron has a “real” condition, one that is crippling emotionally, often goes hand in hand with very real physical illness and ALL TO OFTEN ends in death. I must admit, I hesitated to add the name of my mental illness to my name as a public artist. But I wanted to help people who also battle this illness. I have battled this disease so long(I was not correctly diagnosed and treated till age 35!) that I want to pave the way for those who come after. I dont share the fact that I am a survivor of violence to toot my own horn, or give me some imaginary ( and frankly twisted thinking here) EDGE, as if PTSD is a medal, or inclusion into some club- I share these things so that someone else can find hope and a way forward.
I remember being that 12 year old girl who was so awkward and uncomfortable in her own skin that self medicating just made me feel “normal”. The girl who wanted friends so badly that she didn’t tell on the grown men who raped her. That poor lost girl who felt so confused that she jumped out of a moving car and abused herself just to make the pain stop. I just wanted to feel normal and loved like everyone else, but this illness led to a 23 year spiral into addiction, alcoholism, being trafficked, assault, domestic violence, crime, jail and more suicide attempts.
I want to be a voice of hope. Science and medicine have advanced by leaps and bounds. Young people don’t have to go thru the painful experiences I did to finally get help.
I am moved to do this because I walked thru 20 miles and 56 years of burning coals to get where I am today. AND IT WAS A VERY LONG LONELY, LONELY, LONELY, LONELY ROAD. I would be so very happy if I could pour water on those coals for the Young people diagnosed with this sickness. So while it may annoy you that I tag myself as a “Relevant, Rapid Cycling and Recycling Bipolar Artist”, please just consider why I do this, Cause, hey, it sure doesn’t sell any art.
Did you ever look into Sir Frances Bacon’s Artist Biography? Or see images of his studio? The disorder I describe in my life pales, trust me. Mr. Bacon had some trauma issues too. You don’t need to be told, just see.
Out of the Gutter Art 
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