Karoo INFINITY DWELLS IN THE
Freedom hangs in the crisp air and runs to the horizon. In Nieu Bethesda, Helen Martins’ house attracts those who wish to learn how she gained personal freedom. By Lisa Wiedeman
WANA
nnesburg
TH CA
Port Elizabeth
AN I N D IA N OCE
ethesda
It’s best to leave town at dark and wait for the sky to BOTSWANA grow green, yellow, orange, while you Johannesburg drive. The prickly SOUTH AFRICA plants appear first as shadows, and are Port Elizabeth Cape slowly painted by Town N daybreak to reveal A I IND AN dark greens and OCE earthy browns. On Karoo a perfect autumn morning, the grass glistens modestly in the rising sun, and seems to whisper, “good morning, Karoo,” to the seamless sky that stretches beyond the Sneeuberg. The Karoo is a beautiful place. Infinity resides here, and greets you at every bend in the road. One feels small, but it is not the kind of small that makes you sad. Instead, lightness and forgetfulness overcome you and make you feel that all is well. The mountains bulge and curve like waves waiting to break. One can almost hear their yawns in the morning — waking the velddiere who quietly go about the business of survival. Freedom hangs in the crisp air. So many fields and fields and fields that run to the horizon and joyously greet the azure. NAMIBIA
ZIMBABWE
34
ZIMBABWE
Reflections on Freedom 2013
But all is not as it seems. Freedom does not necessarily permeate the boundaries of towns, or the minds of people. Perhaps one village that knows this too well is Nieu Bethesda — a tiny place that one reaches only when the road runs out. Now home to artists and people keeping small coffee shops, mainly for the tourists, the village makes a living from its sad past. Helen Martins was born in Nieu Bethesda in 1897 and lived there most of her life. After the deaths of her parents in the early 1940s, “Miss Helen” also struggled to cope with being abandoned by her husband. She was viewed as an outsider in the highly conservative, apartheid-informed, village, and she became increasingly reclusive. Her association with nie-Blankes and her
unconventional art made conservatives suspicious. Finding little love in the outside community, Miss Helen turned inward and began to transform her house and garden. “Welcome, please come in. Everything is just as I left it.” One enters the Owl House, and her spirit guides one through it. “That’s my tub, these are my owls … my candles. I’m so happy you came.” With the help of her friend, Koos Malgas, Miss Helen created more than 300 cement-and-glass statues that present various scenes depicting the Nativity, the philosophies of Omar Khayyam, and owls of varying sizes and positions. Everything points east. The Camel Yard expresses a yearning for love, and represents her search for freedom from the hurtful Nieu Bethesda community. “Sometimes I light the candles, and everything sparkles.” Helen Martins was an artist, deemed South Africa’s foremost “Outsider Artist.” Her house in Nieu Bethesda attracts a steady flow of tourists throughout the year. She was a woman, saturated with irony — treated with contempt when all she sought was love, people falling in love with her only after her death. The Karoo gives one a feeling of smallness, but if one is not careful, little things will make you wish you had paid more attention.
