You probably drive past them every day in Mount Isa, but there's more than meets the eye with the Carrandotta Horses sculpture near K Mart Plaza.
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Mount Isa Deputy Mayor Phil Barwick has thrown light on some of the design aspects of the Carrandotta Horses sculpture at a council meeting this week.
In August 2018, just ahead of the 60th anniversary rodeo, Mount Isa City Council unveiled a sculpture that pays tribute to Carandotta Station, which used to deliver rodeo stock to the Isa rodeo.
It has proved a popular installation even getting yarn bombed in 2019.
Responding to a question from the public at the Mount Isa City Council ordinary meeting at Wednesday, asking if the horses could be painted to protect them from the elements and make them stand out as a tourism attraction, Cr Barwick said he was heavily involved in their installation three years ago.
Cr Barwick said the horses were lit at night and were placed on the Barkly Hwy site in consultation with Department of Transport and Main Road so they fit in with their rules and they were deliberately design to rust.
"It is not unusual for art in towns across western Queensland to have that effect, to be made of bare steel and to rust," Cr Barwick said.
"If you paint them you're likely to have ongoing maintenance costs each year and suffer more from vandalism."
Cr Barwick said the art was in the eye of the beholder.
"If you look closely at those horses you'll see a few things and one of them is that it is a vignette so as you drive by the pieces all line up to become the horses and then they fade away," he said.
"Also the first horse represents Blondie, which if you look closely there are a lot more holes in the horse and you can see the light coming through to give it a lighter effect than the rest of the horses."
Carrandotta was the property near Boulia where many of the Mount Isa Rodeo's best bucking horses including the famous Blondie were kept.
From Carrandotta the horses would be walked through the scrub north east of the Dajarra Road through the southern reaches of Bushy Park to the Leichhardt River catchment. From there George Ah One drove the mob along the river to Spear Creek north of Mount Isa.
Mayor Danielle Slade said suggestions for city improvements could be put into the master plan which Council was currently working on.
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Derek Barry
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
Editor of the North West Star Mount Isa since January 2016. Prior to that, an editor at several regional southern Queensland newspapers. Passionate about telling local stories. Comes with a strange accent to due an Irish accident of birth.
