The beautifully hand-crafted green pear in Jack Bradstock’s hands says it all: he may be 95 but he can still fashion a lump of clay into a work of art.
While Jack insists he’s no expert and that pottery’s just a hobby, the prospect of another class or two shortly down at the Raglan Old School Arts Centre’s Clay Shed in Stewart St brings a sparkle to his eye.
“It’s a tactile thing,” he tells the Chronicle from his small room at the end of a corridor up at Raglan Rest Home and Hospital, explaining the satisfaction he gets from pottery.
It’s a pastime which also gives this nonagenarian the odd brief respite from his everyday world which, this year, has laid him low with first Covid then the flu.
Jack’s daughter, local accountant Lynne Wilkins, attributes his potting prowess partly to “the design work and engineering skills” he employed as a consulting engineer back in the day.
She recalls he also did pottery in the 1970s, later progressing to woodturning, then took it all up again in his 80s at a Tauranga rest home which had a shared man cave with potter’s wheels, lathes and tools.
Lynne has umpteen pieces of “functional” pottery in her Ocean Beach home that Jack has made over the years – from bowls and vases to candlestick holders and a bespoke toast rack she uses every day.
“I remember a lamp stand you made too,” she prompts her father. “A cylinder with a Pacifica design.”
After moving to Raglan this year Jack got inspired all over again at Lindy Moir’s ‘Nourish’ course a few months ago. He was a delight to have at the clay-and-coffee sessions, Lindy says. “Everyone enjoyed having him as a member of our class, it was really wonderful.”
Jack was unhurried in his work, a bit of a perfectionist and noticeably animated among the like-minded people enjoying the classes, she says.
The course – designed to nourish mind, body and soul – offered four sessions of hand-building. But Jack’s now keen to tackle the potter’s wheel once more.
He’s all signed up as a member of the Clay Shed and has bought an airbrush to donate.
Jack says he loves to get out and be among “artistic” people again. Even so he has to be a little cautious, wearing rubber-soled shoes on the slippery concrete floor.
It’s also fingers-crossed that he can actually sit and balance steadily enough at the wheel to create the pottery he’s so proud of. “We’ll see,” he smiles.
