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MOSSEL BAY NEWS - A Mossel Bay local is recycling and repurposing items to create exciting light fittings.
Johan Stadler, who is a qualified plumber, says: "To survive during Covid-19, I was multi-tasking. But it all started before that. It is a love of art."
Stadler adds: "You need to push at different levels if you want to move forward financially."
A few years ago he went to George, to the owner of a cinema that had closed. Stadler says: "I got hold of him to buy the old film projectors. But he said he had sold them as scrap metal and he made R17 000 for the aluminium."
Photo gallery: Exciting lighting
Stadler says his aim is to transform items that people cannot use anymore into something "inheritable" and valuable.
"One light takes up to eight weeks to finish." He sold his motorcycle in order to acquire a 1952 model Simplex film projector in Stilbaai to transform it into a light.
"Sometimes you need to sell anything you have, to buy something you are passionate about," Stadler says.
He has been featured in a number of magazines.
"Sheiks, Germans and Americans have come into my place. They have been all over the world and they say they have never seen the type of lights I am manufacturing anywhere on the planet."
Stadler says he arrived in Mossel Bay about 15 years ago with only a backpack and carry bags. He qualified as a plumber in Mossel Bay. "From there, plumbing helped me to buy pocket watches and other items to combine them for light fittings."
See Stadler's creations on exhibition at the Woodmill Lane Shopping Centre in Knysna until 5 January.
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