The House
Helen Martins lay ill in bed one night, with the moon shining in through the window, and considered how dull and grey her life had become. She resolved, there and then, that she would strive to bring light and colour into her life. That simple decision, to embellish her environment, was to grow into an obsessive urge to express her deepest feelings, her dreams and her desires ...
It is not known in what order the work was accomplished, other than the fact that the interior of the house was virtually completed before the exterior was begun. There was no overall plan, but what began as a decorative quest for light and colour soon developed into a fascination with the interplay of reflection and space, of light and dark and different hues.
From the mundane articles that surrounded her, Helen Martins extracted and manipulated an emblematic language of sun-faces, owls and other images.
This is all set against a luminous backdrop of walls and ceilings coated with elaborate patterns of crushed glass imbedded in bands of brightly coloured paint. In the pantry, provisions had to make way for colourful jars of carefully graded and sorted glass that she laboriously crushed through a large coffee grinder in the back yard.
It was only when the interior of the house was virtually completed, that Miss Helen applied her imagination to the world beyond her door. She was particularly inspired by biblical texts, the poetry of Omar Khayyam, and the works of William Blake. Over a period of about twelve years, she and Koos Malgas created from imaginings the hundreds of sculptures and relief figures that crown the ‘Camel Yard’ and cover the walls of the house. They utilised basic materials such as cement, wire and glass and playfully transformed everyday objects. Her favourite animals, owls and camels, predominate, but all manner of real and fantastical beings are to be found. Humans take the form of acrobats and graceful ‘sun-worshippers’. A procession of shepherds and wise men lead a vast, almost life-size camel train toward a humble nativity scene installed in a stable of tiered glass bottles. A sign on the fence orientates the tableau toward an ‘East’ as designated by Miss Helen, and seamlessly integrates Christianity with her fascination for the Orient. The yard is dotted with sphinxes, Buddhas and sanctuaries of tiered glass bottles that she called her ‘Meccas’.
An arched entranceway from the street, watched over by a stoic double-faced owl, is significantly barricaded by a tall mesh fence and a stand of tall Queen-of-the-Night cacti. Like the elaborately bottle-skirted hostesses within the yard, this arch must have been intended to welcome the awed visitor into this land of mystery and enchantment, but the fence speaks plainly of an increasingly troubled relationship between Helen Martins and the outside world.
Miss Helen
Helen Martins was born in December 1897 and grew up in Nieu-Bethesda as the youngest of six children. She obtained a teachers diploma in nearby Graaff-Reinet and, around that time, married Johannes Pienaar; a teacher, dramatist and in later years a politician. The marriage did not last long and knowledge about her activities in the years that followed is sketchy and often contradictory. She certainly spent time in the Transvaal (now Gauteng), Cape Town and Port Elizabeth.
Helen returned to Nieu-Bethesda in the nineteen-thirties to care for her ailing and elderly parents. Her mother, who had long been an invalid, passed away in 1941. 'Oom Piet' Martins died in 1945, and Helen Martins was left alone, with few prospects, in this remote Karoo village. It was some time after this, somewhere in her late forties or early fifties, that 'Miss Helen', as she became known, was to begin to transform her surroundings.
It is certain that Miss Helen sought praise and attention through her work but as time progressed, and derision and suspicion grew within the village, she became increasingly reclusive. Miss Helen was notorious for not taking care of herself and as time, arthritis, and the arduous nature of her undertaking took its toll on her physique, she became increasingly shy of her appearance and took great pains to avoid seeing people in the street. The friends that she had, however, describe her as an intensely passionate person who became particularly animated and excited when discussing the latest ideas for her beloved creation.
In order to pursue her vision, Miss Helen had successfully managed to endure great physical and emotional hardship. That is, until her eyesight began to fail her. On a cold winters' morning in 1976, at the age of seventy-eight, Helen Martins,took her own life by swallowing caustic soda. It was her wish that her creation be preserved as a museum. And, her desire to be recognised as an artist is magnificently realised in the attention accorded to the Owl House and the fact that her artwork, once an object of derision and embarrassment, has become the single most important asset of the village of Nieu-Bethesda.
