My Mecca

Far, far south – and far away from everywhere – this ‘Mecca’ was built by Helen Martins in the tiny village of Nieu Bethesda in the dusty Karoo.

It has little to do with Makkah, the holiest city in Islam, a place she’d never visited. But it has everything to do with my own ‘Mecca’ which isn’t a place at all...

In 1945, ‘Miss Helen’ began building her ‘Mecca’, transforming her home using cement and wire, pieces of glass and plastic, and finely crushed glass which she used to coat the brightly painted walls and ceilings. Later, with the help of assistants, she built over 300 sculptures in her garden of owls and camels, and other animals and figures, almost all facing east.

I can only imagine how laughably crude and strange – and maybe even a little nightmarish – her fantastic creations must have seemed to the conservative Christian villagers, inspired as the sculptures and murals were by the Bible but also by the poetry of Omar Khayyam and the work of William Blake.

Under Apartheid, her collaboration and friendship with her assistants, especially Koos Malgas, a farm labourer from the so-called ‘coloured’ community, only added to her own Afrikaner community’s disapproval and mistrust.

Although the reclusive ‘Miss Helen’ had little to do with the villagers, once a year she would invite them into her home, every mural and all the mirrors and brightly coloured windows illuminated by dozens of lanterns and candles.

However, in 1976, at the age of 78 she took her life. No one knows for sure why she did it. Her home, known as ‘The Owl House’, fell into disrepair but in 1996 became a museum and national monument, and is now visited by the curious and appreciative from around the world.

As a teen, I was deeply moved by Athol Fugard’s play The Road to Mecca which is based on the life of Helen Martins and had been drawn to ‘The Owl House’. But, finally getting to visit years later as a student teacher with a group of teens, it wasn’t so much the place that inspired me after all – it was the imagination, determination and hope of the untrained artist behind it.

And, of course, the hours and hours of creative activity which transformed her home and garden into this unique ‘Mecca’...

You can read more about Helen Martins and 'The Owl House' on Wikipedia. And about The Road to Mecca at http://litmed.med.nyu.edu. And if you'd like to find about more about Nieu Bethesda: http://www.nieu-bethesda.com.

Ludicrous

Today is Nelson Mandela’s 94^th birthday.

Twenty-four years ago, 72 000 people attended a concert at Wembley in London to celebrate Mandela’s 70^th birthday. I wonder how many of the thousands of people at the concert, or watching it at home, would have imagined – or dared to hope – that Tata Madiba, as he is affectionately known to so many South Africans, would still be the father of a democratic South Africa well into his nineties. And that his birthday would have become an annual international day (known as Mandela Day) on which to honour his commitment to justice and equality in South Africa.

As a teen in South Africa, I could only read about the concert in Number One, one of my favourite music magazines. However, as Mandela was banned and imprisoned, I wasn’t allowed to see any pictures of him. How ludicrous that I could read about him but not see him – and that someone actually had to black out his face in every copy that was sold in South Africa..!

You have to laugh... and appreciate just how far we’ve come...

Well, at 25 pounds a ticket, the concert raised 3 million pounds for children’s charities in South Africa.

On Mandela Day, we're all urged to give 67 minutes of our time to a charity or to someone in our local community – to take a small step towards improving the lives of others, and arguably our own.

“It always seems impossible,” Mandela once said, “until it’s done.”

What a gift and an inspiration he has been, not only to South Africans, but to so many people around the world.

You can read more about the activities that took place this Mandela Day at: http://www.mandeladay.com

Camera obscura

While in Grahamstown, I took some of my family to the Observatory Museum. Its Victorian camera obscura is the only one of its type in the southern hemisphere and one of only two in the world (the other being in Edinburgh).

A camera obscura is an optical device which predates the camera. The name originates in Latin and refers to a darkened room: camera means “vaulted chamber or room” and obscura means “dark”.

The museum was originally a nineteenth century jeweller’s shop and family home. The original owner and designer of this unusual building, Henry Carter Galpin, was a successful watchmaker and jeweller who constructed the camera obscura in 1882. He was interested in natural history, music, mechanics, astronomy and optics. The museum also includes a Meridian Room where Galpin could ascertain the precise time of local noon (14 minutes behind South African standard time) and a Telescope Room which contains the telescope which was originally installed in the rooftop observatory.

We climbed up a long and very narrow spiral staircase in the highest tower to reach the camera obscura. It works through a system of lenses and a mirror in a revolving turret in its roof and projects a panorama of the city onto a concave viewing surface in the darkened observation room beneath.

It’s fascinating and our guide was knowledgeable and friendly (though the building itself looks in need of maintenance).

This photograph of the image in the camera obscura is not as clear as the image itself. And had it been a sunnier day the image would have been even sharper.

Once locals would set their watches by the time on the clock tower but the clock is no longer working and these days each clock face seems to show a different time..!

You can find out more about the Observatory Museum at http://www.grahamstown.co.za and on Wikipedia.

Back in Bathurst Street

I can’t remember the last time I was in Grahamstown but I went back last week – just for a day – a very cold and windy day..!

But I got a photo of the same view of Bathurst Street that I sketched as an art student years ago.

It was so familiar but of course it’s changed. The building on the corner had been damaged in a fire and had to be restored, and (looking back at my sketch) I noticed the lamp post is gone. And I don’t think that red letterbox was there before – I didn’t include it in my sketch anyway.


But Birch's, the outfitters I'd sat outside sketching, was still there, selling menswear, school uniforms and university robes (for the last 148 years!).

And it was great to see that row of buildings on Bathurst Street still looking clean and bright, and in pretty good condition. And to go back...

Bathurst Street

Birch's

You can see my sketch here: http://daydreamdraggingfeet.blogspot.com/2012/05/down-bathurst-street.html