MZANZITRAVEL ISSUE 12

Discover
Helen Martins Camels and pilgrims - Grobler du Preez, iStock Inside the Owl House
The Owl House…reclusive treasure of
light and magic
For thousands of people around the world the name Nieu Bethesda has become
synonymous with The Owl House. Yet, if you’ve never been in those parts you
probably wouldn’t even know where to go look for this tiny village where owls,
camels, glass creations and a host of other weird and wonderful figures found a
home in the house and backyard of an eccentric, reclusive but very creative woman.
Nieu Bethesda is not reached by any main road. The village lies in the Karoo. It’s in
the Eastern Cape. It’s in a fertile valley surrounded by inhospitable mountains and
Karoo koppies. It’s somewhere in South Africa. You could even say it’s in the middle
of nowhere. It doesn’t have credit card facilities, ATMs or a petrol station. It only has
about 1,000 permanent residents. Yet it has a dozen or more thriving guest houses,
restaurants, a fossil museum, and other businesses. And thousands of people flock
to this village each year. Most of it is thanks to the late Helen Martins and her now
world-famous Owl House.
To reach Nieu Bethesda and The Owl House you have to drive north from Graaff-
Reinet for about 27km along the N9 before turning off onto a secondary road and
driving another 19km to get there.
You might even miss the Owl House with its shutters and stoep, despite its
understated signage in front, for it looks like many of the other Karoo cottages in
the village. What sets it apart however, is a cement arch on the side, with a cement
owl with shiny glass eyes sitting on top. The arch leads into what is known as the
Camel Yard. It is there where you’ll enter a fantasy world of figures made of cement,
dominated by many owls with glass eyes made of the bottoms of bottles.
The sculptures include mermaids, a little church, skirted female figures, figures
taken from Biblical tales, camels and pilgrims, a collection of giraffe heads on
necks without their bodies, lambs and shepherds, a nativity scene, suns, fish, a lion,
peacocks, snakes, cranes, dogs, a cat, a singing bird, Buddha, Mona Lisa reliefs
against the walls, Adam and Eve, and sphinxes. And of course owls.
The house and the yard containing this creative treasure are a testament to a
woman many considered having been an outsider, a recluse, an eccentric, some
even claimed mad, but that has been debunked. Although she did have friends in the
village, she kept to herself, and more so as she grew older. Between 1945 and 1976,
living alone in this house, she created her art. Helping her were a few labourers,
chief among them Koos Malgas, who probably was the person who knew her best.
Both the tragedy and dullness of her life were probably the inspiration for her
creativity. Although it seems no-one really knows. According to research published
on The Owl House website, Miss Helen was born in Nieu Bethesda on December
23, 1897, the youngest of six children. After completing her education with a teaching
diploma in nearby Graaff-Reinet, she married fellow teacher and villager Johannes
Pienaar. Together they travelled the country as part of a touring theatre group, but
the marriage was an unhappy one, and six years later they divorced.
She returned to her frail parents’ home to care for them. In 1941 her mother passed
away. Her father, with whom she had a troubled relationship, passed away in 1945.
A reflection of her relationship with her father was the fact that in his last years she
moved him into an outside room, later named the Lion’s Den, of which she painted
the walls black. He too was said to be an eccentric man who acted strangely at times.
By now she was alone in the house in which she had lived most of her life, and her
creativity started filling the void. She transformed the house and gradually the yard
filled up with sculptures.
At the age of 54, in 1952, she married again, to a widower named Johannes Machiel
Niemand, but it lasted less than a year. As she grew older, she suffered badly from
arthritis and started losing her eyesight, her eyes possibly having been damaged by
years of working with ground glass. By now she seldom ventured outside her house.
At the age of 78 she committed suicide rather than being separated from her beloved
Owl House and her art.
During her creative years Miss Helen, as she was known in the village, created some
300 odd of these sculptures. Many are inlaid with bits of colourful glass and mirrors,
and she frequently used the bottoms of glass bottles as eyes. She painted the inside
walls of her house in bright colours overlaid with layers of crushed glass and placed
many mirrors around. It is thought she sought to transform her dreary, isolated life
into one of light and magic. During the day sunlight reflected off the bright colours,
glass and mirrors, and at night candles and lamps brought it glitteringly alive. And
thus, she brought light and magic into her life…and later into the lives of thousands
of visitors. It is unlikely that she ever foresaw what an effect she, her creations and
her house would one day have on so many people.
Not only does her Owl House inspire thousands of people from all over the world –
up to 15,000 people visit it each year – but she is said to have inspired the famous
playwright Athol Fugard to write his equally famous play, The Road to Mecca, which
was later made into a film.
Today The Owl House belongs to the Camdeboo Municipality (Graaff-Reinet),
while the Owl House Foundation maintains her legacy. The house is maintained as
she left it, as is the art, and part of her story and legacy can also be viewed in the
Helen Martins Museum in the village. The Owl House is open from 09h00 to 16h45,
Monday to Sunday, and during the December school holidays, from 08h00 to 17h45.
24 |ISSUE 12|www.mzanzitravel.co.za | MZANZITRAVEL