I have written, over the years, two books about the Owl House. My discovery of the Owl House goes back a very long time. As a Fine Art student at Michaelis Art school in Cape Town, I had, as my painting lecturer, Peggy Delport. She owned a holiday house in the small village of Nieu Bethesda, and had spoken about the work of Outsider artist, Helen Martins and her Owl House to us. On a road trip, heading to Lesotho, with a fellow art student, we decided to leave the national road and head out on a gravel road through the mountains and across high wind-swept vlakte, the pyramid shape of Kompassberg among the folds of blue mountains in the distance. We arrived in the lush valley of Nieu Bethesda as the sun was slipping behind the koppies. There was an avenue of giant pear trees, that must have been planted at least a hundred years ago, and there were sheep in the green fields, lending an almost biblical feel to the place.
We found the Owl House. It was locked and barred. Helen had died a few brief months before our visit. We climbed gingerly onto an old barrel standing against the wire fence, protecting her sculpture yard, and were able to peer over the fence and between the the Queen of the Night cactus plants, forming a prickly second barrier. The statues were standing in a field of silvery long grasses. The sculpture Yard was an astonishing and memorable sight. That first glimpse of it has stayed with me over the years. There were camels and birds and miniature buildings, giraffe necks and mermaids and a melange of other creatures. And there was an extensive and surging rush of cement pilgrim figures, some resembling shepherds and others seeming to be the wise men on camel back who rode through the desert, following the star of Bethlehem. The figures were moving towards a part of the Sculpture Yard that appeared to represent Helen’s romantic and mystical version of the Holy Land.
What struck me forcibly was that this art environment was the powerful and moving vision of a mystical artist, searching out and recording her unique and heartfelt version of the Divine. This overwhelmingly strong connection, in her work, with the path of mysticism, was my departure point for the research into her life and work that became the first book I write,, The Owl House. This book was republished a few years ago and is on sale at various book outlets, such as Exclusive Books.