Accomplished artist had unlikely beginning

Jane Ash Poitras enjoys a stellar career as an accomplished artist recognized the world over for amazing visual art. But her destiny for greatness wasn’t obvious when as an orphaned five-year-old she was taken into the loving care of her foster mother Marguerite Runck, a devout Catholic of German descent.
“She taught me German and I taught her English and helped her with her reading and writing,” Poitras said. “We were good for each other and she was a wonderful woman whose own kids were grown up and she was lonely so she took me in.”

Encouraged by Runck as she grew up in her McCauley-area home in central Edmonton, Poitras spent many hours drawing, colouring, cutting and pasting during her school years. She later graduated from the University of Alberta with a bachelor of science degree in microbiology.

“I never intended to become a professional artist, I was on my way to becoming a doctor,” she said. She didn’t think her art would be sustainable as a career.

But her passion was never far from her thoughts. She continued to draw and paint in her spare time and enrolled in evening art courses. Eventually she presented a portfolio of her work to the university’s department of art and design, and that changed her direction. She graduated in 1983 with a bachelor degree in fine arts in printmaking, later adding a master degree from Columbia University in New York.

By this time, her mixed-media works were already winning awards and were showing in commercial galleries and exhibitions.

One of her most famous is “Who Discovered the Americas?” which addressed the topic from an Aboriginal perspective as it toured across Canada. Today she is in demand as a guest lecturer in public galleries and universities across North America. Her courses in Shamanic Art and Contemporary Native Art are popular.
Along the way she married and raised two sons of whom she is very proud. She was able to reconnect with her family from the Mikisew Cree First Nation in northern Alberta as well.

Poitras has won numerous awards and scholarships including from the Canada Council, New York State, Indian and Northern Affairs, Syncrude Canada, and the National Aboriginal Achievement Award. She is especially proud of the Alumni Award of Excellence she received in 2006 from the University of Alberta Alumni Association.
A collection of her pieces, entitled Consecrated Medicine, is currently hanging on the walls at the Royal Ontario Museum in the First People’s Gallery.

“They want me to attend at their expense to do some programming with kids and Elders and I’m looking forward to it,” Poitras said.

The thousands of works of art she has created over the past 25 years hang on the walls of the National Gallery of Canada and most major public galleries and in prestigious corporate and private collections throughout Canada and the world.

“So that’s been the story of my life,” said Poitras. “It just keeps getting better and better and I’m grateful for it.”