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Tactile Desires: The Work of Jack Sures © By Amy Gogarty

Hand Built Pot, 1968; oxides, fibreglass
stoneware, 59.5 x 60 x 60 cm. Saskatchewan
Arts Board Permanent Collection.

The Answer, 1987; sprayed engobe,
stoneware tiles, 235 x 197 x 5.7. Collection of
Jack Sures and Cara Gay Driscoll.

Catalogue of the exhibition at the MacKenzie
Art Gallery, Regina, Sask., 24 September
2011 - 2 January, 2012, travelling to Owen
Sound and beyond. Available from the
MacKenzie for $44.95 plus tax and shipping
from galleryshop@mackenzieartgallery.ca or
306.584.4270.

The work of Regina clay artist Jack Sures
is not as well-known as it should be here on
the west coast, but in Regina, Sures is a major
figure whose influence extends through his
teaching, public commissions, elegant ceramic
vessels and graphic works. The MacKenzie

has assembled an impressive selection of

107 vessels, platters, decorated tiles and
graphic works dating from 1964 through to
2010, accompanying this with a beautifully
illustrated catalogue with essays by curator
Virginia Eichhorn, associate curators Julia
Krueger and Timothy Long, craft historian
Sandra Alfoldy and Seattle art critic Matthew
Kangas. For those unfamiliar with Sures, the
catalogue provides an excellent introduction
to his work, and for those interested in
contemporary ceramic criticism, history and
theory, it offers much to consider.

Born to Russian Jewish immigrants in 1934,
Sures was raised partly by his grandparents in
Winnipeg, where he was first exposed to arts
and crafts classes. After entering university
to study science, he switched to fine arts,
supporting himself in school by working
on the railway. He travelled extensively,
working his way across Britain, Europe, the
Middle East and Israel. In 1972, he travelled
to Grenada with the United Nations and
set up a ceramics program that is still in
operation. For thirty-two years he taught at
the University of Regina, where he mentored
several generations of ceramists. Sures was a
key factor in the Regina Clay movement and
did much to maintain a dialogue between
Regina and California. He is known for his
large thrown and textured vessels, many
of which feature animal imagery as surface
decoration or ornamental additions, and for

his architectural murals that appear on public

buildings such as the Canadian Museum of

Civilization across Canada.

Tactile Desires is a model of clarity with its
orderly presentation of a detailed chronology,
bibliography and handsome photography.
The list of works provides comprehensive
information on medium, size, collection and
page on which the work is reproduced. One

might think this is stating the obvious, but,
unfortunately, all too many publications miss
the opportunity to organize and present this
information in a practical manner. This alone
would establish the value of this catalogue,
yet, thankfully, there are also five essays to
enlighten and challenge the reader.

Curator Virginia Eichhorn outlines the
primary events and influences in Sures’
life and work, exploring issues such as the
eroticism and sensuality in his work. She sees
these as factors reflecting changing sexual
mores in Canada, the artist’s three marriages
and his remarkable physical energy. Eichhorn
calls Sures “an unrepentant sensualist” and
his work “the physical manifestation of his
tactile desires” (27). Seattle critic Matthew
Kangas places Sures’ work in an international
context, stressing the emergence post-WWII
of a “global ethic of the handmade...hybrid
blends of the internationally informed craft
object” (43). Travel and extended stays in
Great Britain, France, Japan and the United
States introduced Sures to an international
community of artists and world art traditions.
the
famous Emma Lake Artists’ Workshops and

Living in Regina, he encountered
American legends Clement Greenberg and
John Cage. As the ceramic program expanded
in Regina, it attracted students and professors
from across North America, notably the
hyper-realist ceramic sculptor Marilyn
Levine and the California Funk artist David
Gilhooly. As Kangas details, these influences
created an extremely fertile and sophisticated
environment in Regina, encouraging the
creation of work that was outward-looking
and world-class in stature.

Timothy Long focuses on Sures’ large-scale
public murals. Exploring the art/craft debate
with fresh insight and relating anecdotes
drawn from his experience as a curator, Long
tells a story in which he puzzled over the
orientation of what he called an “ugly” pot
from the late 1960s. Years later, he discovered
the so-called sculpture was actually a hanging
planter missing its rope. He uses this anecdote
to explore the variety of “frames” that have
been applied to Sures’ work over the years
and to question issues of boundaries between
art and craft. Long argues that the “framing
artworks

devices” developed to discuss

Continued on Page 5, Jack Sures

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Potters Guild of BC Newsletter « July/August 2012

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