Van Sewell sticks a fork in his gallery at The Forks

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This article was published 02/12/2022 (1405 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

The waterfall-riding plague doctor and bathtub-bound devil have a month left at The Forks.

After New Year’s Eve, they and Jordan Van Sewell’s other ceramic pieces will vacate the gallery he’s called home for the last four years.

“(It’s) another chapter in the autobiography,” Van Sewell, 68, said.

Since 2018, his works — from the wolf in the yellow dress to the old blue pickup truck — have occupied space on the second floor of The Forks Market.

“I’ve always adopted a pretty casual attitude about the whole idea,” Van Sewell said of his gallery.

He’s lasted at The Forks roughly 45 months longer than anticipated.

Van Sewell’s first contract outlined three months’ tenancy. Since then, he’s been on a month-by-month basis, he said.

A business at The Forks is expanding and moving into Van Sewell’s current location beside McNally Robinson, the artist said. The Forks won’t yet share who’s taking the space.

“I’ve worked (here) for four years now, and at this point, it’s probably enough,” Van Sewell said, adding he’s leaving on good terms.

He’ll continue to create in his home and sell art online — in between motorcycle rides across Canada.

“I have to be thankful that I can still move my fingers to the point where I can still make this stuff,” he noted. “I’m sure any decision I make should be based on my own mortality. I see others dropping around me.”

His work will live on at The Forks — he’s the designer behind the canoe sculpture at The Common, The Forks’ bar.

Being an artist was unheard of in Van Sewell’s family. However, sculpting became his teenage passion.

“I remember seeing little figurines of Charlie Brown,” Van Sewell said. “I thought… I could make my own version.”

High school art classes marked by clay led to University of Manitoba art projects and local craft clubs that offered kilns.

Van Sewell attended art school, and kept creating, while working for Canadian Pacific Railway.

Once the regular caboose was axed, Van Sewell quit his job and turned his full attention to ceramics. He’d display his work in galleries, travel across Manitoba and teach programming at schools.

“Showing out of my garage converted into a gallery wasn’t really cutting it,” Van Sewell said.

So, in 2018, he approached The Forks and asked to take some unrented retail space. The two inked a temporary agreement.

“This really is the closest thing I’ve had to a job since I worked on the railway,” Van Sewell said.

Current events inspire his art — hence the ceramic plague doctor in a barrel, plunging down a waterfall.

“If things had been different — had there not been a plague, had certain events been different, would we be looking at different work? Quite likely,” Van Sewell said in his gallery Thursday. “It’s been an inspiring time.”

He considers himself a “village spokesperson,” commenting on society through art. The work is meant to be provocative, entertaining and enlightening, he said.

Joanne Vanderhorst, Van Sewell’s wife, also shows her artwork in the gallery.

“It’s not necessarily a great place to sell art,” she said, noting that much of the foot traffic is casual browsers and tourists.

Some of Van Sewell’s pieces sell for more than $2,000 — not the type of purchase for a typical browser, Vanderhorst said. However, the location has highlighted Van Sewell’s name, she said.

“It’s been a nice opportunity to kind of expand his exposure to people who wouldn’t otherwise know about him,” she said.

Van Sewell was a member of The Forks’ warming hut jury and inspired the windsock installation along the site’s river skating trail, according to Clare MacKay, chief communications officer for The Forks.

“Jordan has been an amazing contributor to The Forks’ stories on so many levels,” MacKay wrote in an email. “We know that there will be other stories that involve Jordan over the coming years.”

Van Sewell’s gallery will remain open from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Tuesdays through Sundays, ending on New Year’s Eve.

gabrielle.piche@winnipegfreepress.com