This painting, “Ad Infinitum”, is a commentary of my journey from Alcoholism, Drug Addiction, Sexual Assault, Domestic Violence and Childhood Sexual Assault, Self-Loathing and Suicidal Ideation to a Life of Freedom and Acceptance of the person I was. As a person with Rapid Cycling Bipolar Disorder, and PTSD , this journey was arduous and excruciatingly painful.
This work has been juried into the ” 2021 Women In Art”, an online show honoring women artists for the month of March, at Las Laguna Art Gallery, Laguna Beach, California. You can view this show online at laslagunartgallery.com March 4-27,2021 Description of Work: As a Bipolar Artist I have always portrayed my duality in my work unconsciously at first, way before any diagnosis. I painted this as an entry to The Ryan Licht Sang Bipolar Foundations Insights IV Art Show in 2019, the theme being Self Portraits. As such all the women in the image are different facets of the Artist. On the Left side of the image in gilt and green vines we find a woman hanging on a stake, paying for her crimes.
Center Bottom is the past self (as I described initially here). We see that she is dark overall, and notably, wearing a mask and full of confusing puzzle-like pieces and disjointed lines. In fact even her hair is like the pages of a book that holds her many secrets. There are signs she has been in bondage, chains, shackles, even some kind of demon-like being can be seen lurking inside, still biting her(shoulder region).This collection of symbols indicate not only abuse, but also the bondage of addiction and codependency. She smiles up at the healed self who is lifting her out of the mire. Her condition had become so dire, that we see a tiny version of self scrambling up the stairs in her forearm to escape, with a look of terror on her face. That is not a shirt the lower self wears, it is her skin, which has to peeled off to reveal the clean inner person she is becoming.
Around the lower self’s neck, central to the painting we see a venomous snake, usually a symbol of evil in art, for centuries. But rather than striking, it is benevolent ( after all it is pink!) An “inside joke” on the Artist’s part, as she was bitten by a Pygmy Rattlesnake on July 5, 1985 and then by a Copperhead on August 10, 1995, which very nearly cost her her life.
BUT SHE LIVED, and now that all the other venom of her past is purged, SHE IS LIVING A JOYFUL LIFE NOW! As far as the child in the right-hand corner, that needs no explanation, nor does the love on the face of the Healed Self.
This Mixed Media Painting by Susan T. Martin is Entitled, “A Wee Bit Peckish”
Using Simultaneity and Surrealism I morph my feelings and emotions into birds, fish, and an outpouring of faces, each expressing the myriad emotions I go thru each day as a person living with PTSD and Bipolar Disorder.I wonder how many animals you can find? It’s like a little joyride into my manic mind!
I’m in “Wonderland” right now. Been here for a week or so. Time seems to be inching by, my head too heavy to lift off the pillow. Not sick physically, I’m just…just…what can I tell you? I have had some unknown trigger going me headlong into a timewarp. Into a place I never ever wanted to return to…
The Recurring Bipolarism of self image…
Is the reflection REAL?
My art, from it’s earliest inception, has contained 2 sided faces. Always compelled to create a smiling side juxtaposed to a moody/dark side. Even before I consciously knew the face was symbolically my own, before I had ever heard of mental illness or anyone called manic depressive illness bipolar, I was painting my double sided inner person. I have doodles and sketches from grade school where this manifested…it was a necessary act to portray my protagonist self this way. This was the girl inside of me, who would soon find ways to hide from physical reality in altered states…
The inner struggle raged on in imagination…detail of “The Sentinel’s Prayer” by Susan T. Martin2018
After the traumatic events of my young life had begun, my self-image became warped and twisted. My mental despair manifested itself in self harming behavior: anorexia/bulemia, punching walls, suicide attempts…to this day, nearly 50 years after the onset of the abuse, I still cannot eat without feeling ugly afterwards.
What keeps me from total despair when the flashbacks and darkness come is knowing and believing that this WILL PASS. The excruciating pain WILL END. I place this fact very deliberately and firmly into by mind every time I recover from these spells and after years of therapy, medication and learning Faith, I have overcome total despair. To RISE AGAIN AND PAINT ANOTHER DAY!!!!! I HOPE THAT DAY IS today!!
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.
Sigh… I’ve been feeling crappy… Really Awful… SICK. It has caused a pause in my production of work. There is this niggling worry, of course, about the big C, CO I mean…VID. I don’t believe this is it, am hoping very strongly that this is not it. The headache is from a sinus infection that seems to always correspond to this changing season. So, I have been fighting, on this front, for about a week.
I rely so much on my little Kleo as a huggable, furry sounding board , having recently experienced the grief of losing her uncle Kiko last month. She became violently ill yesterday, and had to be rushed to the astronomically expensive emergency vet. Five hundred plus dollars and a day later she is stabilized, but I’m not sure I am. The running total on all my credit cards is the highest I’ve ever had, and the gallery I use has been virtual for months. Sales are nil for now, so I feel pressured to create a masterpiece . But I keep falling asleep with my paintbrush for my hand, and abstract ain’t my bag at the moment. Perhaps it should be. I could, in my stupor, lay a blank canvas on the floor by my couch and hold an open paint jar over it while I doze. Perhaps some nice swirly “pour”will result…( This is a JOKE. )
The day before my illness I painted a new canvas, and I feel very pleased with it, even though my freehand jug is rather “interesting”. I do have more works in progress , soon to come to fruition as Kleo Pup and I mend. Yay. I mean, “YAY!!”
I’m feeling disgusted with myself. Yet again I have lapsed into the void. The Void that exists inside me, when I feel incapable of creating anything of value. My fellow artists, do you ever come to this vast zone of inability?
Many would tell me that it’s the Bipolar monkey, bouncing up and down on the seesaw of creativity that exists between my ears. Right now I want to “shock the monkey”…(thank you Peter Gabriel)…It seems to be less like a monkey and more like a huge Brahma that has lain down, groaning and farting, on all my art supplies. (warning:EXTREMELY GRAPHIC WORD PICTURE!!!)
The warning should have come before the farting bull. Sorry. NOT.
Oh, the wonderful bucolic images that now dance ’round my imagination. Huge farting cows in pink tu-tu’s daintily dancing hoof to hoof. Hey, maybe I’m onto something! I hear Brahms playing in the background while the Brahma’s cavort! Wait for it… Wait for it….There!!
Sleep has been a constant goal for me since I put down drugs and copious amounts of alcohol. Yet it has been the most evasive and endangered of species, teasing me with scattered glimpses of it’s eternal beauty. Oh, how I have longed for it’s soothing embrace, and so have everyone I have contact with; they also wish sleep would embrace me!
. The constant effect of losing this cherished companion is my surliness, my impatience, my wind-like changeability and undependability. Punctuality is no longer a quality I can claim, and it frustrates me greatly. Falling asleep in my oatmeal is also quite frustrating, as is stabbing myself in the eye with my mascara brush. Nodding off at redlights and nearly colliding with oncoming traffic are less than desirable effects of losing my Lovely Sleep’s company, also.
Bipolar Disorder, my particular breed of it, thrives on insomnia. The Manic high’s leave me strung out like guitar strings tightened to the breaking point, you can virtually hear my mind humming at high frequency when I walk into a room. The flying mouse-wheel of thoughts is now turbocharged , ready to escape it’s moorings and fly an oblivion my mind may never recover from. The longer she evades me with her unfaithfulness, the more my living quarters look like a battlefield, reflecting her absence in my life.
. It truly is a war. The other end of the spectrum in this battle is THE DARK. Each day of the mania leads me closer to the brink of devastation. At times THE DARK and the mouse-wheel cohabit my being, bouncing my sanity as if a Rubber ball has been thrown full tilt into a narrow alley.
. Then the fateful day arrives when my loss of Lover Sleep leads me to the pit, the abyss of THE DARK. It throws me in and pulls up the rope ladder in one fell swoop. Leaving me to stand waist deep in the most desolate places of memory. Abuse, Pain, Rejection, Rape, Loneliness, Fear, thoughts of Harm, Deep All encompassing Grief… They are all here, all come out from the darkness edges of this well of depression to shove and kick me about as I stand in the tiny spot of light that trickles down from the far above opening of this shaft of hell.
The level of Muck rises as each long day passes, and unless I can find the toolbox my years of mental health therapy has given me, or if I can find that lifeline of contact with my support network, or best yet, if I can find a way to kneel and call out over and over to my Creator, begging for the strength to claw my way out, all may be lost. Anyone who has fallen down this DARK, knows how close it gets to oblivion at times…
. Days can pass, this last round a month passed, as you can see by my lack of sharing here. The pen weighs a thousand pounds, the telephone a ton. At times my paintbrush is lost in the sediment, more often than not it is divine release. I let the Dark flow out of me and away, down from my battered heart and mind , then finally draining from my fingertips on to canvas, paper, cement block or found object. The level of sadness ebbs, I have the strength to climb and paint my way up the walls wet with my tears.
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. As the light gets brighter, the colors on my canvas turn from Greys and browns to lilac and magenta, then colors of light and freedom. A few minutes of rest in Dear Sleep’s embrace , a gift from above then the final push into the light. The glorious light of freedom of peace, bathing my psyche in cooling water, releasing the bondage of all those fears, flashbacks mental anguish.
. My Creator saw fit to give me another glorious day, and finally the strength to reach for help from my doctors, my therapist, and my lifeline of freeflowing art, color, shape and movement.
Prayer for Magdallia, by Susan T. Martin 9 x 11 Marker on Board $50.00
Last Years Insights II WINNING Entry!
. Finally, my quest is completed, my medicine adjusted, which I take gratefully. Now with this elixer (and a new bipap machine) , some calming music and grateful meditation on all my blessings I fall gently into Sleep’s waiting arms. I lay my head on her motherly bosom, which happens to be my favorite squish pillow, and off I drift down the gentle stream of happy dreams…looking forward to a joyful, rested Awakening.
My first watercolor for Art Mundo’s Calendar Art Juried Show and Sale, accepted(sold)Susan T. Martin2016
Pop goes the Color! My Bouganvilla in full bloom(it is over 10 feet tall and 20 feet around !
Another Garden Visitor, “Oleander-head Lady”…
A Visitor to one of my Giant Zinnias
So Happy to Be in CHICAGO!
UNCHAINED, UNCUFFED, Mixed Media on Board, $400.00 (Available)
Out of the Gutter Art 
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