Helen Martins lay ill in bed one night, with the moon shining in through the window, and considered how dull and grey her life had become. She resolved, there and then, that she would strive to bring light and colour into her life. That simple decision, to embellish her environment, was to grow into an obsessive urge to express her deepest feelings, her dreams and her desires.
On a cold winters' morning in 1976, at the age of seventy-eight, Helen Martins,took her own life by swallowing caustic soda. It was her wish that her creation be preserved as a museum. And, her desire to be recognised as an artist is magnificently realised in the attention accorded to the Owl House and the fact that her artwork, once an object of derision and embarrassment, has become the single most important asset of the village of Nieu-Bethesda.
Nieu-Bethesda is a tiny village in the middle of the deserted Karoo, South Africa.
www.owlhouse.co.za
Source: Jacqueline's trip to South Africa
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