Joe Fafard grew up feeding chickens, slopping pigs and milking cows. In return, the animals fed the family of 12 children. That relationship figures large in Fafard’s career as one of Canada’s finest sculptors.
His lifelike bronze sculptures of animals are admired and desired by many.
He says he doesn’t know exactly why they are so popular, but he hopes admirers get what he’s trying to express.
It goes back to the family farm at Ste. Marthe, Sask., near Rocanville.
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“The animal is an extension of ourselves,” said the soft-spoken artist, sitting in his Pense, Sask., studio and foundry.
“We knew its quirks and its personality. We built a rapport. And, of course, we killed them, too. If you as a child are exposed to all that, and are observant, you have an empathy with them.”
Fafard believes animals have a consciousness suited to their species and are aware of themselves and fellow creatures.
This does not make him a vegetarian.
“I’m just trying to say that we are all connected and we cannot live independently of nature. We ought to take good care of nature as much as we should take care of ourselves.”
Perhaps that is what people feel when they gaze into the eyes of a Fafard cow. He said the immediate response from people suggests something is at work.
“In a way they’re responding to their own desires in terms of how they want to communicate with the animals,” he said.
The cows in particular have worked their way into people’s hearts, and Fafard said the symbiotic relationship we have with them must play a role.
However, the sculptures most in demand are his small works of people. From prime ministers such as Pierre Trudeau to artists like Diego Rivera to ordinary people in Fafard’s life, the figurative clay sculptures are so lifelike the subjects seem like they could easily rise from their chairs or speak out loud.
In his studio, Fafard’s father leans forward in a chair, seemingly ready to offer advice.
The artist has his favourite piece at home.
In the early 1970s, when he moved to Pense, he met George Smith, who had come to the Prairies from Newfoundland and was already elderly.
“When I did the piece it was a study into a character,” he said.
He sold it to Smith’s family for $400 and was told he would get it back when Smith died. That didn’t happen, and the piece was sold.
Last year, Fafard attended a Toronto art fair and was surprised to see it for sale.
“I bought it back for $65,000,” he said with a rueful smile.
Fafard originally thought he would paint and draw, but in his third year of a fine arts degree at the University of Manitoba he discovered sculpture.
He obtained a master’s degree from Pennsylvania State University in 1968, and then taught at the University of Regina until 1974.
He shifted from clay to bronze in 1985 and established the Julienne Atelier in Pense, where he now employs 10 people. His mother, Julienne, made papier-mâché cows and encouraged her son to develop his talent.
Now living on an acreage north of Regina, the father of five said he hasn’t considered living anywhere other than Saskatchewan.
“It’s the most beautiful place in the world,” he said.
He finds inspiration everywhere and makes art for himself above all.
“Sometimes I don’t give them up,” he said of his sculptures.
Working in bronze, he is able to cast a piece to keep. Working in clay, there is only one.
“You make art to satisfy your curiosity,” he said. “It’s one thing to make money but it’s a much better thing to pursue your inquiring mind. I’m not any more talented than any other artists. I just kept at it longer.”
Many would argue that point. Fafard has received numerous awards and honours for his work, including being named an officer of the Order of Canada in 1981 and to the Saskatchewan Order of Merit in 2002.
His work continues to be seen in exhibitions and galleries around the world, and earlier this year people across Canada could all afford to buy a little piece of it.
In February, Canada Post issued four million stamps with three of his most famous works, including a bronze cow entitled Smoothly She Shifted.
