Kattanga part 2

There's more movement in Kattanga than there is in Jackson the zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz Great Dane

Jackson the black Great Dane with Kattanga, the black horse

Kattanga will be one of the sculptures on this year's Teignmouth Recycled Art in the Landscape sculpture trail
Kattanga owes his form to the diagram Skeleton of Horse in Back's Veterinary Dictionary (pub 1928 11th edition 1975. A & C Black Ltd)
This is the first layout of coathangers. The scale is set at 2 coathangerlengths to each leg. To get depth, perhaps a cylindrical bucket can be used for the ribcage and maybe different sized pipes for the neck and legs. Dustbin lids might help with Kattanga's bum... Many thanks to Claire who brought one round this morning; along with a few other black plastic bits.
Kattanga will be about the size of a small pony. The addition of his mane and tail will give him a fun, Thelwell aspect. The mane and tail are to be plaited from video and casette tapes - with the help of the children from Starcross Primary School.

Kattanga

Work is progressing on the horse for this year's Teignmouth Recycled Art in the Landscape but more black plastic is needed.
The method to fuse the plastic together seems to have worked because the pictured head has lasted a few weeks:
Take a glue gun to put the bits in place. Use a soldering iron to melt the plastic components where they touch, and fuse together.  It's a very stinky process - the fumes smell toxic. The sculpture must be sturdy enough to last outside on Teignmouth seafront for the summer.

Kattanga is his name... d'you like that? His eye is a British Telecom phone base, and his nose is a piece of a car (which was found in Church Road, Cofton) and the rest of his head is coathangers. This is the start; just one side of his head. More coathangers and plastic bits will make Kattanga's head sturdy - or maybe leave him as he is and do another one for TRAIL?

Kattanga's head

His base will be a metal frame. His mane main component will be black plastic coathangers. Their curved shapes are very graceful.  The children from Starcross Primary School will plait his main mane and tail from casette and video tape. When all this junk is together, Kattanga promises to be a beautiful addition to this year's Teignmouth sculpture trail.

 So we please need:

• BLACK PLASTIC - nothing that can normally be recycled, but garden tools, buckets, wheelbarrows and manely mainly BLACK PLASTIC COATHANGERS.

• VIDEO AND CASSETTE TAPES. I'll take them to pieces to use the tape to plait the main mane and tail. 

I've contacted the world-acclaimed Newton Abbot artist Heather Jansch, who agreed straightaway to advise. That's so wonderful - take a look at her gentle horses on her website. She makes them out of driftwood, and then casts them in bronze. Look at the expressions and the movement she achieves!

The young Arabian bronze edition of 5 for sale check availability

Cantare life-size horse bronze edition of 5

I hope I can get some movement in the plastic sculpture - maybe cheat a little bit, and leave some of the plastic tape to blow in the wind?

Please get in touch if you can help with this project.

Cheers

Monica Lang

TRAIL horse diary

Work has started on the armature for Dobbin; the first TRAIL  horse. Old garden fence wire has been shaped into his head.

We've been on the lookout for pieces of CURVED or curvable plastic that won't be recycled. The assemblage for the sculpture includes plastic coathangers and Christmas lights that don't work.

The assemblage for the sculpture

  This  bit of mudguard picked up this morning could be Dobbin's muzzle

Dobbin's muzzle?

 Here's a Dobbin we made earlier

coathanger Dobbin

The children at Starcross Primary School will  help with the horse project later this year - when the pile of rubbish could start to resemble the incredible Sayaka Ganz gallopers.

Sayaka Ganz Galloping Horses

 Plans are afoot for the school to make manes and tails.

Plastic pieces could be wired to the armature, but a stronger structure would be if the plastic were to be welded together. There's information on the internet about how to weld plastic to plastic. We'll try with a heat gun. A candle can be used to alter the shape of a piece of plastic.

Plastic can be chopped up into small bits, and toasted in a  sandwich-toaster  to make flexible plastic board.

Plastic can be welded together using a soldering iron and plastic welding strips


We need lots of help and advice with this project please. The Teignmouth Recycled Art in the Landscape sculpture trail runs from July until September.