Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland to launch book about Saskatchewan-born artist Agnes Martin

Poet, playwright, novelist and publisher Eugene Stickland is hosting a book launch for his play The Innocence of Trees Wednesday at Shelf Life Books. (Photo: Stephen Hunt)

Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland grew up in Saskatchewan, the same as painter Agnes Martin, but he didn’t know about her until 2004, the year she died, about 20 years after he’d left Regina to live and write plays in Toronto and then Calgary, where he was the Alberta Theatre Project’s playwright-in-residence 10 times.

“I was intrigued,” Stickland said in a recent Facebook posting, “as like me, she was a Saskatchewan-born artist.”

Martin was born in Macklin in 1912, moved with her family to Vancouver in 1919, then moved to the U.S. in 1931. She had over 85 solo shows, participated in the Venice Biennale and Documenta – big art star events – and was an undiagnosed schizophrenic until 1962.

In 1967, she left New York and after an 18-month road trip, settled in a rural community in New Mexico and lived there until her death in 2004, producing much memorable art that was very much associated with the art scene of Taos.

In 2018, Stickland was in Taos with cellist Morag Northey working on a play when he remembered Martin and visited her “shrine” at the Harwood Museum there. That's when he decided he wanted to write a play about her.

That play, The Innocence of Trees, has been written, produced (at Theatre Network in Edmonton) and published. After doing an Edmonton launch last week, Strickland is doing a book launch Wednesday night at Shelf Life Books in Calgary.

The innocence of Trees, a new play by Calgary playwright Eugene Stickland about Canadian painter Agnes Martin, is being launched Wednesday at Shelf Life Books (Photo: Eugene Stickland)

It received stellar reviews when it premiered in Edmonton, all of which begs the question: will it ever be seen in Saskatchewan, Martin’s birthplace?

“As we speak, it has just had its premier production at Theatre Network in Edmonton,” Stickland said, in an email. “Now that it exists in a nice-looking book, I will send it to theatres in Regina and Saskatoon. And then as we all do, cross my fingers.”

He is asked whether Martin is properly celebrated in Saskatchewan.

“The Mackenzie Gallery in Regina had a show of her work five years ago,” he said. “I believe the town of Macklin celebrates her life in various ways. But she left early and moved to the (United) States, becoming a U.S. citizen in 1950.

“Her time in Saskatchewan was not exactly a happy time, so I don't believe she had much a sentimental attraction to the place," he adds. "And she was, after all, an abstract expressionist and appreciation of such work does not always filter down to the common man or woman. It can lend itself to a lot of head scratching!

“The other famous person from Macklin is former NHL Commissioner Clarence Campbell," he adds. "It's likely that hockey is more in the minds of the local citizenry than fine art.”

It might be a little late, 20 years after her death, but through The Innocence of Trees, one Saskatchewan-born artist is helping celebrate another.

“At some level, even though she left, she is one of us,” he said. “She lived her life on her own terms in New York and New Mexico.

“She was a lesbian when that wasn't exactly fashionable or even legal in some places,” he adds. “She managed to live with a debilitating affliction, schizophrenia, and despite hearing voices and enduring years (off and on) of being institutionalized, surviving repeated bouts of electro-shock therapy and who knows what -- all which is surely inspirational for anyone.

“And she stuck to her vision of what her art should be, ie. the grid paintings,” he said. “There was no road map for her, she made it up as she went along and put her stamp on the art world.”

The book launch is at 7 p.m. at Shelf Life Books, 1302 4^th St. SW.