Adult Life

Clem Martini
After university Clem became a teacher in drama and playwriting at the Calgary Wood’s Homes. The Calgary woods homes is a mental health center that provides treatment and support for youth with mental health issues. The center was founded in 1914. (Clem Martini, n.d.) Interestingly, troubled characters that have trouble finding out who they really are is a common there in his Clem’s plays. Clem worked there for 15 years. Clem wrote his first play in 1988 called “The Colour of Coal” about miners that got trapped in a mine after an explosion. In 1995 he wrote “Illegal Entry” about three teens that steal from parties and get trapped in garage. Because of Clem’s past with schizophrenia in his family he wrote “Nobody of Consequence” in 1990 and “Selling Mr. Rushdie” in 1997. Both plays had the protagonists be placed in a situation where they had to reflect on who they are. “Nobody of Consequence” was about a man who loses his body in a trash compactor, lives and tries to reconnect with his wife. “Selling Mr. Rushdie” was about three men kidnapping a man who claimed to be the famous Mr. Rushdie but was in fact not. Clem as a child always had a love for animals and wrote three books “The Life History of the African Elephant”, “Secret Life of the Octopus” and “Feather and Bone: The Crow Chronicles”. (Clem Martini, n.d.) Clem married Cheryl Foggo another Canadian author, director, screenwriter and play write in 1984. Clem did some collaborations with Cheryl including “Turnaround” and “The Devil We Know”. Clem currently works for the University of Calgary as a professor of drama.

Olivier Martini
Olivier continues to do sketches, paintings and prints that have been displayed at the Marion McGrath Gallery. His works have also been published in the Alberta View magazine and has been part of the Canadian Mental Health Copernicus Project. His most notable project is “Bitter Medicine: A Graphic Memoir of Mental Illness” and “The Unravelling: How caregiving safety net came unstrung and we were left grasping at the thread, struggling to plait a new one”. (Olivier Martini, 2019)

- Ryan Sneyd