Joseph Hector Yvon Fafard b. 1942

When he left Winnipeg, where he was making abstract steel sculptures, and landed in Regina in the late 1960s, Fafard found himself surrounded by a group of artists who replaced the by-then-famous, and mostly relocated, Regina Five. These artists included David Gilhooly, Marilyn Levine, Ann James, Victor Cicansky and Jack Sures, who had started the ceramics department at the university in 1965.

Ceramics became Fafard's medium of choice almost immediately, and he found his own kind of expression and subject as quickly. His production was steady and the acceptance of his work across the country and abroad came soon afterward. Since he settled in the Qu'Appelle valley, he has produced a stream of works in clay, and then a great number more in laser-cut steel and in cast bronze.

This fine, amusing and useful table is a unique piece, unlike many of his works, which are in editions. Like so much of his work, it provides us with pleasure and joy, and a connection with the natural world that we otherwise and too often tend to ignore.