Sask. ceramic artist to receive lifetime achievement award

If you give Jack Suresa piece of clay, he'll likely make something beautiful out of it.

Canadian ceramic artist Jack Sures will receive the Saskatchewan Arts Board Lieutenant Governor's Lifetime Achievement award at the Remai Modern Art Gallery on Thursday.

Sures moved from Winnipeg to Regina in 1965 to launch a ceramics and printmaking program at the then-University of Saskatchewan campus.

"I think one of the reasons I came was because there was a great art community here," saidSures.

When the school offered him $8,900 to teach for the year he couldn't refuse, in comparison to the "three cents an hour" he said he earned at his studio in Winnipeg.

"I had all these young minds to work with," he said, of his years on campus. "They stimulate you just as much as you stimulate them."

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To this day, he recallshis favourite work, located in Saskatoon: A 2,900 square foot mural at the Sturdy Stone Centre.

"I still see it and it surprises me, often," he said.

His work has beendisplayed in variousgalleries, both nationally and internationally, including: The Canada Council Art Bank in Ottawa,the MacKenzie Art Gallery in Regina, theMontreal Museum of Fine Arts andPecs National Museumin Hungary.