The Jester's Realm: The Work of Jordan Van Sewell

M. Wayne Cunningham is a past executive director of the Saskatchewan
Arts Board and the former director of Academic and Career Programs at
East Kootenay Community College.

The Jester’s Realm is a 40-page catalogue prepared by Donald DeGrow,
guest curator for the Winnipeg Art Gallery’s 2000–01 exhibition of
40 clay pieces by Jordan Van Sewell. In addition to a 10-page essay by
DeGrow, the catalogue contains a foreword by WAG director Patricia
Bovey, 15 beautifully executed full-color plates of pieces in the
exhibition, and a brief biography of the artist that references his
various earlier exhibitions, the awards he has received, and the private
and public collections in which his works are held.

In his insightful essay, DeGrow succinctly compares the role of the
traditional court jester to that of the modern-day artist as evidenced
in individual pieces in the displays; discusses Van Sewell’s earlier
training and the influences various avant-garde art centres in
California had on his art; notes that Van Sewell’s ceramic sculptures
can be interesting, involving, autobiographical, ironic, symbolic,
humorous, even insulting; and concludes that Van Sewell’s overt
purpose of entertaining is a mask for his more covert intention of
teaching.