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.

Glimpses

I used to think my work wasn't pleasing enough – that it would never be chosen to go up on display in the foyer at school – and it often wasn't. And once, when we had a visitor to the school, it ended up in the darkest corner of the room – behind the art room door! (However, since figure drawing only ever involved fully-clothed models and any nudity – or semi-nudity – in our art works was frowned upon, I can only smile at the memory and appreciate that it was put up at all).

Well, there's no nudity here – just some glimpses of the kinds of things I found beautiful, startling, powerful and, I hoped, just a little bit defiant when I was growing up.

Adieu

My favourite teacher, when I was at school, was my art teacher.

I don’t know if she would remember me, so many years later, but I haven’t forgotten her.

She only taught me for two years, when I was one of her ‘leetle leetle Std 6s’ and then one of her ‘leetle’ bigger Std 7s (in Grades 8 and 9), but the interest she took in me and my work made all the difference, especially at a time when my own interest in my school work was flagging.

She seemed to delight in each of us, her artists, in our mischief as much as our imaginations. And I think we, at a rather rigid and old-fashioned girls’ school, appreciated her impishness and wonder as much as her artistic and teaching abilities...

This was her farewell to us...

As a teacher now myself, I’ve since found out how hard it can be to say goodbye to students – but also how much easier it is to stay in touch.

We may have gone our separate ways, but I like to think that we may still meet up again, my past students and I, somewhere in the world – in the UAE perhaps, or Bahrain, Turkey, Pakistan, the US, Canada, the UK, Australia, Japan... That our farewell was more an au revoir than an adieu...

So...

Till we meet again...

Later...

Drawing games

I taught my niece this game when she was very little. She’s eleven now and she still loves it – she gets everyone drawing, especially when she sleeps over during the holidays. 

Take a piece of paper and fold it in half, then in half again. The first person to draw draws the head and neck, the second person draws the upper body down to the waist, the third draws the hips and thighs, and the last draws the calves and feet. Each person folds back their drawing so that the next person doesn’t see it and at the end someone – in our family always the youngest! – unfolds the piece of paper to see what kind of crazy creature’s been created.

I love that she can still have so much fun – despite all the TV shows and computer games competing for her attention – with a scrap piece of paper and coloured pencils...

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