"There's very few verticals in nature. And there she was as vertical as I remembered her, which was only a week ago at the Pasadena Museum, sitting on a chair in the middle of the stage, surrounded by an overflow audience, her hair short to the ears and still brown and wearing a sort of tangerine velveteen skirt to the floor with a white starched blouse slightly femme flared at the elbows and twisting a white handkerchief in her lap as though it was worry beads and my friend with me said she looked a dead ringer for Gertrude Stein."

Wilder reading the first half of "Agnes Martin: Surrender & Solitude" by Jill Johnston

Jill Johnston (1929-2010) was a British-born American writer, cultural critic, and lesbian separatist activist. This piece was published in Lesbian Nation, a collection of essays she wrote as a long-time contributor to The Village Voice.

This is the first item of a selection of texts sent to us by Wilder Alison. Wilder Alison (b. 1986, Burlington, VT) is an interdisciplinary artist whose recent work includes painting and works on paper.

"The work of Agnes Martin has had a significant influence on me and I am delighted by this collision of two quite disparate queer/lesbian cultural figures of the 20th century (US)."

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