Bricklayer, masseur, clay artist … Pat Wishart lets his hands do the talking.
By Liane Arno
AS PAT Wishart rose to greet me, I saw he had a back brace on. “I know a really good masseur if you need one,” I quipped. Because in fact Pat is that really good masseur. Not long after I met Pat, I put my back out and could hardly walk. The agony when I tried to change the gears in the car as I drove to his studio brought me to tears. As Pat worked on my back, he told me that he could almost see through the skin and visualise the musculature of a person. When I went back for my second appointment, I told him I felt like a fraud – my back problem had completely gone.
AS PAT Wishart rose to greet me, I saw he had a back brace on. “I know a really good masseur if you need one,” I quipped. Because in fact Pat is that really good masseur. Not long after I met Pat, I put my back out and could hardly walk. The agony when I tried to change the gears in the car as I drove to his studio brought me to tears. As Pat worked on my back, he told me that he could almost see through the skin and visualise the musculature of a person. When I went back for my second appointment, I told him I felt like a fraud – my back problem had completely gone.
Pat loves using his hands. And he loves the earth – anything tactile. His first attempt at art was making ashtrays from clay he dug up in his garden for his pa, a committed smoker. It used to be a joke in the family when anyone asked his pa what he would be getting for Christmas. “I think Pat’s going to make an ashtray.” I ask Pat if he still has any but he laughs and tells me he thinks that they would get chucked out very shortly after they were dispensed from under the Christmas tree.
His love of the earth continued as he moved from an apprenticeship as a bricklayer to becoming a stone mason. We are sitting at his home and he can point out the gnarly stone from the blue stone pit in Philip Island to the smoother contrasting stone from Leongatha. He says building with stone is like making a jigsaw. The walls of his home are mud brick using cream coloured clay that he sourced from the Koonwarra gravel pits. He loved the work – but his back started to give out.
He was inspired by his uncle, Con Donohue, who was known for his magical hands in giving the Dalyston Football Club players their massages. Pat wanted to see if he could do as good a job as his uncle. The only time any of his clients complained was when he massaged them after making a wall with concrete bricks. Pat laughs that they made the palms of his hands like cheese cutters. After a year he had enough clients to give up the stone masonry and bricklaying. While you still need a strong back for massaging, working at table level is much easier than the constant bending to lay bricks.
As a fellow surfer, Pat knew Deb Reilly. You will remember Deb fought cancer for 15 years and lost her hair due to chemotherapy. ArtSpace was inspired to create the Archies Bald Portrait Prize with proceeds going to the Cancer Council and Deb told Pat about it.
His love of the earth continued as he moved from an apprenticeship as a bricklayer to becoming a stone mason. We are sitting at his home and he can point out the gnarly stone from the blue stone pit in Philip Island to the smoother contrasting stone from Leongatha. He says building with stone is like making a jigsaw. The walls of his home are mud brick using cream coloured clay that he sourced from the Koonwarra gravel pits. He loved the work – but his back started to give out.
He was inspired by his uncle, Con Donohue, who was known for his magical hands in giving the Dalyston Football Club players their massages. Pat wanted to see if he could do as good a job as his uncle. The only time any of his clients complained was when he massaged them after making a wall with concrete bricks. Pat laughs that they made the palms of his hands like cheese cutters. After a year he had enough clients to give up the stone masonry and bricklaying. While you still need a strong back for massaging, working at table level is much easier than the constant bending to lay bricks.
As a fellow surfer, Pat knew Deb Reilly. You will remember Deb fought cancer for 15 years and lost her hair due to chemotherapy. ArtSpace was inspired to create the Archies Bald Portrait Prize with proceeds going to the Cancer Council and Deb told Pat about it.
Archie Roach, clay work by Pat Wishart. It won second prize in last year's Archies Bald Portrait Prize Pat decided to enter the exhibition to have another go at working with clay. He found some orange coloured clay in Fish Creek which he thought would be perfect. At the same time, he had recently discovered the beautiful music of singer Archie Roach. He thought it would be a perfect entry. He said, “As I listen, I think of the struggles he has been through in dealing with the hardship and humiliation of being one of the Stolen Generation and compensating for the loss through alcoholism. And then when life seemed to be on an even keel, he found he had lung cancer. Early diagnosis means he is still here to share his stories which are always woven into his songs.”
Pat couldn’t believe it when his piece won second prize.
Inspired by his win he went on to create some wombats for ArtSpace’s Extra-Dimensional Exhibition. There had been a lot of erosion at Kilcunda where the sand had been scoured off the beach. He found a layer of peat and under the peat was clay. He collected the clay before the sand could cover the beach again and took it back home to mould into little wombats. He threw them into his open fire at home and watched them glow red in the flames. When the fire burnt out, he retrieved the wombats and put them in a steel bucket full of dry rice hulls and manure where they developed some beautiful colours as they cooled. I should mention that he did try the technique with shop-bought clay only to find that his wombats exploded. You can imagine the curators weren’t quite sure to do with the 27 that he created!
Besides thinking of his next creation Pat loves to surf – a pastime for the past 40-plus years. He says it is a wonderful way to retune. “When I surf, I’m not thinking too much when a wave comes crashing over my head – frankly everything is washed away.”
Maybe I should start surfing!?!
Pat couldn’t believe it when his piece won second prize.
Inspired by his win he went on to create some wombats for ArtSpace’s Extra-Dimensional Exhibition. There had been a lot of erosion at Kilcunda where the sand had been scoured off the beach. He found a layer of peat and under the peat was clay. He collected the clay before the sand could cover the beach again and took it back home to mould into little wombats. He threw them into his open fire at home and watched them glow red in the flames. When the fire burnt out, he retrieved the wombats and put them in a steel bucket full of dry rice hulls and manure where they developed some beautiful colours as they cooled. I should mention that he did try the technique with shop-bought clay only to find that his wombats exploded. You can imagine the curators weren’t quite sure to do with the 27 that he created!
Besides thinking of his next creation Pat loves to surf – a pastime for the past 40-plus years. He says it is a wonderful way to retune. “When I surf, I’m not thinking too much when a wave comes crashing over my head – frankly everything is washed away.”
Maybe I should start surfing!?!