Miniature windmills and “draadkarre” have been part of Cradock’s culture for a very long time.
A story is told that “draadkarre”, miniature cars made from scrap wire, were first made in the days when farmers originally started fencing in their farms.
The men who had to span the wire, sometimes high on mountain tops, could not return home every evening and whiled away their time by making cars for their sons at home, from pieces of off cut wire.
Today this is a quite an ongoing industry that has expanded from cars and windmills to almost anything you can imagine. This trade, however, has never been advertised until now. Luthando Ndabeni, who works in a shop in the morning, does beautiful pencil portraits and sketches and is also a talented “draadkar” artist, is now trying out the value of advertisement.
According to Neville Prinsloo of the Visit Cradock organisation, this is the start of great things. Visit Cradock plans to delve into the history of ‘draadkarre’ and make space available for other artists to decorate empty walls in town. There will also eventually be an exhibition of these miniature cars in an empty garage in Cross Street in Cradock.
