Out of the Gutter Art

Tag: recovery

  • 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?

  • 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…

  • 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