With great sadness, but with gratitude for a life well-lived, Jack Sures’ family informed his students of his passing at noon on May 12, 2018. This news came just weeks after the celebrated Saskatchewan artist received the Governor General’s award in Visual and Media Arts.
Jack Sures, was born in 1934 in Brandon, Manitoba. He completed his Bachelor of Fine Arts at the University of Manitoba in 1957, and his masters degree in Painting and Printmaking from Michigan State University in 1959. After travelling around Europe and the Middle East for several years, he returned to Canada to set up his own ceramics studio in Winnipeg. In 1965, Jack moved to Regina to built the Printmaking and Ceramics program at the University of Saskatchewan’s Regina Campus. His contributions at the University of Regina helped to make it the hub of creativity, teaching, and learning it is today. He was the Chairman of the Department of Visual Arts at the University of Regina from 1969 to 1971. On his retirement in 1998 he was granted Professor Emeritus, where he remained actively working in his studio on the University of Regina campus, influencing and inspiring students every day.
During his teaching career, Sures was the recipient of numerous commissions, including pieces for the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Sturdy Stone Provincial Office Building, the University of Saskatchewan, and the Wascana Rehabilitation Centre. His work has been exhibited throughout Canada and internationally.
Sures received many honours and awards, including the Saskatchewan Arts Board Lieutenant Governor’s Lifetime Achievement award. (2017), the Grand Prize at the International Ceramics Competition in Mino, Japan (1989), the University of Regina’s Alumni Association Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching and Research (1991, 1992), the Order of Canada (1991), the Canada 125 Medal, and the Saskatchewan Order of Merit (2003). He was also elected to the International Academy of Ceramics.
Sures’ ceramic work is represented in numerous collection, including the MacKenzie Art Gallery (Regina), Saskatchewan Arts Board, Pecs National Museum (Hungary), Canada Council Art Bank (Ottawa), Winnipeg Art Gallery, Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, Canadian Guild of Crafts (Montreal), and Mendel Art Gallery (Saskatoon).
In the ceramics classroom, he was uniquely one of a kind charismatic man, and his influence will be remembered and treasured by many. He was a renowned ceramic artist, a remarkable educator, a mentor, and a friend. He led his students by example, showing them what it means to be a motivator through hard work and a passion for life and art. Jack displayed what it takes and what is possible in terms of being a professional artist, right up until the age of eighty-three. The number of students that have been touched by Jack’s knowledge is incalculable. Jack was a generous person, artist, and teacher who loved his “kids” (as he fondly called his students) as if they were his family. He was an artist who showed unwavering kindness and generosity through his actions, shining an internal bright and brilliant light. He fed his student’s fires with his love of art, clay, music, food and life. The gifts he gave are immeasurable and will forever live on through the objects and traces he left behind; his essence of presence will be felt long after he is gone. God Bless his care and hard work with his time on this earth. He will certainly be missed but lives on as an unparalleled friend. Rest in peace, Canadian Ceramic Master and dearest sandwich man.
“Over the past six decades, Jack Sures has displayed enormous creativity, innovation and technical mastery in Canadian craft… He has greatly influenced Canadian ceramics through his development of and longstanding involvement with the University of Regina’s Ceramics Program, his pedagogical practice and his conceptual engagement with the vessel.”
– Julia Krueger, craft researcher, writer and curator (nominator)
Of Giants Olivia Rozema MFA Graduating Exhibition November 12 – 20 Artist Statement Of Giants
is an exhibition of large scale ceramic sculptures of human body parts.
Based upon a series of preparatory drawings completed at the McMaster
Medical Anatomy Lab, each sculpture represents of an individual piece of
the body. With these sculptures I have peeled away layers of skin and
biological purpose to reveal a formal sculptural object.
I
believe we are encouraged to see our bodies as either meat or machine;
these sculptures subvert this point of view to encourage a relationship
with our internal anatomy that is more celebratory than it is medical or
grotesque. Despite their beginnings as human anatomic specimens,
as a result of their scale and surface, these sculptures seem to be the
remnants of a gargantuan pre-historic creature. They have an excess in size that places them outside the realm of human,
but in truth our insides are the strange giants that are seemingly
strewn across the gallery floor. The final frontier is beneath our skin,
and although they often remain unseen, I believe our insides are made
up of a complex network of sculptures that each person carries with them
as they move through their lives.
Emulating the
format of catalogued specimens each sculpture is titled with a number.
These titles are a reference to the organization system of a medical
lab, but also play with mathematics, as the number refers to how tall a
person would be if these fragments were a true part of a body. For example, the sculpture which represents all the bones in a human left foot is titled 49 10/12.
This means that a person with a giant’s foot of this scale would be
about 49’ 10” tall. These giant-scale human body parts re-mythologize
and monumentalize our hidden and mysterious insides giving viewers the
opportunity and license to imagine their own body parts as complex and
compelling formal objects.
The sculptures embody a type of self-knowledge. Their forms suggest something we feel we should recognize
but cannot place. They have an uncanny resemblance to the real,
however, they are skewed. They are strange human parts made stranger,
with my hand re-creating and re-imagining their forms. These forms,
removed from their natural bodily context and enlarged, reside in the
space between the familiar and the unfamiliar, dramatizing the
disconnect of our relationship between our insides and outsides. I
over-analysed, mimicking the shapes, patterns, and textures that
incited my fascination. I removed these bones, sinew, and organs from
their natural contexts and transformed them through sculpture, so that
my captivation with the shapes of our insides can be shared with the
audience.
Imagine
getting this look in cone 6 oxidation! Learn how Jay accomplishes this.
Come
for a workshop that discusses throwing, altering and finishing in cone 6
oxidation. You will see a vessel transform
from a block of clay to one ready for bisque firing.
On
Friday evening, Jay will demonstrate his throwing techniques including his
technique of stretching/cracking. Saturday, you will have a chance to practice the techniques Jay
has demonstrated.
Saturday
Jay will continue some throwing demonstrating types of lids and galleries,
trimming. Jay will also discuss
glazes and his finishing techniques.
You
will see slides of Jay’s work where he will discuss the process followed in
reaching the final piece of art.
He will discuss glazing and share some of his recipes.
To complete experience your experience at this
workshop, bring some clay, your throwing tools, a heat gun if you have one, and
whatever you need to take your pieces home.
Also bring your own lunch for Saturday,
refreshments will be provided.
Jay Kimball is an award-winning artist living in Mervin,
SK. His artwork explores a
fascination with the interplay of surface, form and colour. Most of his pieces begin at the
potter’s wheel and then got through a series of transformations before
firing. Architectural elements are
carved into wet clay that frame abstract natural forms. Apart from one constant glaze, other
glazes are created intuitively, with years of experience and education guiding
the chemical process. His firing method is oxidation cone six electric. This straight forward firing contrasts
the complex material manipulation that occurs during construction.
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