Man who makes art out of flip-flops
This Kenyan-born artist is turning flip-flops into sculptures and has his eye on making furniture from them too
EACH animal is a distinctive rainbow of shades. At a glance, the colourful menagerie of beasts appears to be made of playdough or plastic, but on closer inspection their hides are revealed to be a familiar rubbery texture. Artist Davis Ndungu’s creations feel a lot like a flip-flop – because that’s what they’re made of: discarded rubber sandals. He recycles around 7 000 flip-flops a year to create about 2 000 sculptures.
For the past 10 years Davis (42) has been recycling old beach sandals and turning them into eye-catching sculptures, ranging from giraffes and warthogs to penguins and rhinos.
He’s now also started to make furniture from them, for sale on his online shop and at the bustling Watershed market at the Victoria &Albert Waterfront in Cape Town.
What sets his work apart is it’s all handmade, “and every piece is unique and close to my heart”, he says.
The Kenyan-born artist says the vast amount of pollution in the ocean inspired him to recycle old flip-flops into something “useful and beautiful”.
It’s a painstaking process: the used sandals are first cleaned in a solution of vinegar and bleach and the curved front sections are cut off and glued together to form a colourful block.
Davis sketches an outline on the rubber and sets to work sculpting animals from it. A small elephant takes about 90 minutes to take shape before it’s smoothed with a sander.
His smallest items are keyrings, which cost about R100, and his biggest work is a 30cm-tall giraffe, which costs R750. The giraffes are bestsellers, he says. Each one requires about five flip-flops to create, although he needed more than that to craft a 2m-tall giraffe after being commissioned by a German client to the tune of R37 500.
That took seven weeks to complete, Davis says. “But I’m up for pretty much any kind of challenge.”
DAVIS took an interest in sculpture as a boy living on the island of Lamu in Kenya. The island is known for its history of dhow-building and he’d use the leftover bits of wood from the newly made sailboats
to create toys, and later, sculptures.
“Toys were luxuries we couldn’t afford so we had to make them,” he says. “I guess the less you have, the more creative you become. We used anything we could find – tin, clay, wood – to make toys. My first one, I think, was a car – a VW Beetle. I made it when I was six. I had no formal training.”
He couldn’t afford to attend high school, “so I knew from early on I needed to be good with my hands to make a living”.
“Of course, if you want to pursue a passion you’ll go far if you have a business dimension to it,” he adds.
He switched from wood to flip-flops in about 2009, selling his creations to tourists.
“You choose a certain medium just to be unique and earn a living. People appreciated the medium and I thought it was something I should do,” he says.
The growing demand for his colourful designs saw him relocate to Johannesburg in 2010, then Cape Town in 2013.
Davis set up a small studio in the Mother City where he employs four artists and a salesperson. “I have guys from [the township] Nyanga whom I work with. I trained them and haven’t looked back,” he says proudly.
He also plans to start teaching disadvantaged youngsters to make simple pieces of sculpture, which they can create at home and for which they’ll be paid a commission.
His art and his work are his life, Davis tells us.
“Being an artist is a full-time job. You need commitment and determination.
It’s not something you switch on and off. You must be obsessive in this field. If I’m not sculpting, I feel like I’m waiting to sculpt, and I have the business side I have to take care of when I’m not in the studio.”
Setting up shop at the Waterfront, one of SA’s top tourist destinations, has been very good for business. Locals, tourists and celebrities – including singer Miley Cyrus who popped into his shop last year – have been drawn to his creations.
“Being at the right place is very important,” Davis says. “Once I got the right location, I knew the sky is the limit.”
HE KNOWS his contribution to reducing global pollution may be a drop in the ocean, but Davis takes comfort in knowing the thousands of sandals that pass through his hands are repurposed for a permanent place in people’s homes. Pollution is taken so seriously in Kenya that in 2017 the country introduced the world’s toughest laws on plastic bag pollution: jail time of up to four years or fines of up to R580 000 for Kenyans producing, selling or even using plastic bags. Many bags end up in the ocean, killing birds and sea creatures. And according to Kenyan-based environmental conservation group Ocean Sole Africa, a staggering 90 tons of discarded flip-flops land on the East African coastline alone. The non-profit organisation now has 40 artists and artisans who recycle nearly a million flip-flops a year, also to make sculptures. Davis encourages customers and the public to donate their used flip-flops. “I get people to bring them to me instead of just throwing them in the bin. Most people are just excited I can reuse them. People want to help where they can,” he says. He has partnered with clothing stores, including Mr Price and Pep Stores, which together donated around 7 000 flip-flops to him. “I’m super-excited about my collaboration with Havaianas, the Brazilian flip-flop company. I’ll make Brazilian animals.” Davis is also making furniture out of flip-flops because he strives to always do something new. “My passion is in ideas. We’re continuously experimenting until we get it right. Right now, we’re [also] trying mats and jewellery.” Making an honest living is a point of pride for the artist and entrepreneur. “Sometimes when I go to the mall people ask me, ‘Why are your hands dirty?’ I say to them, ‘It’s because my money is clean – it’s been worked for’.”
‘You must be obsessive in this field’