Owl House/Valley of Desolation
Posted: 2/23/2005 11:30 PM (Permalink)
On the 21st, we took a day trip about 60 kilometers out of Graaf-Reinet (the G is pronounced as if you were trying to cough up a fish bone) up a bumpy gravel road to a very small town named Nieu Bethesda. What’s so special about this little town? Read on and find out.
Nieu Bethesda’s notoriety is due to one woman. Helen Marins was born in Nieu Bethesda in 1897. Her first 40 years were fairly ordinary. She went to school and became a school teacher. She got married and then got divorced. She moved back to Nieu Bethesda after her divorce to take care of her sick mother. Her mother died in 1941 and then her father a few years later leaving her alone in the house.
Marins then became a practitioner of something called Outsider or Visionary Art. Outsider artists tend to be solitary, middle-aged with no formal training. They use common materials and pursue a singular artistic vision obsessively, usually until they die.
For the next 30 years of her life, Helen Marins transformed her house, first the interior and then the courtyard outside into a giant art project. She used colored glass bottles, wire and concrete. It is now called the Owl House.
The courtyard is nothing short of amazing. It is filled with hundreds of these little concrete figures. But I’ll shut up now and just show you.
And that doesn’t really do it justice. It’s well worth a visit if you’re in the area. Unfortunately, the harsh dessert climate has been hard on these fragile little figures. They are showing signs of wear and tear. Moving them out of their setting in this courtyard would really lessen the impact so there isn’t much that can be done.
The rest of the town is best described as quiet. Nieu Bethesda is somewhat of an artists community and there are a lot of guest houses there.
Valley Of Desolation
Just a few kilometers outside of town is a place called the Valley of Desolation. It is a rugged rock formation. We drove up there after we got back from the Owl House and looked around for a bit. There were lots of nice views of Graaf-Reinet and the surrounding countryside. I tried taking another panorama shot. It turned out pretty good (if you squint your eyes a bit).