Helena (Joodjie) Elizabeth Martins

helenmartins owlhouse Helen's grave Helen Elizabeth Martins

Helena, known as Joodjie, was born on December 23rd, 1897 in Nieu-Bethesda and her baptism took place there on February 6th, 1898 conducted by minister Ds. A. A. Weich .

• Birth Notes

  Namen der Doopgetuigen
  Philip van der Merwe
  Martha Viviers
  Further record:
  Aangekomen 17 September 1917
  Bevestigd.6 Januarie 1918
  Aangenomen to Graaff Reinet

Joodjie's father was Petrus (Oom Piet) Jacobus Martins and her mother was Hester Catharina Cornelia van der Merwe.  Her paternal grandparents were Roelof Gerhardus Petrus Maartens and Helena Elizabeth Du Plessis. She had four brothers and five sisters, named William, Piet or Paal, Kulumazonki or Koos, Philip, Hester, Helen, Susan, Annie or Tommy and Alida.  She was the youngest of the ten children.  She died at the age of 78 on August 8th, 1976 in Graaff Reinet.

• General Notes

  For full history see paper written by Susan Imrie Ross for her doctorate at http://eprints.ru.ac.za/3242/1/ROSS-PhD-TR96-01.pdf
  
  http://africanhistory.about.com/od/biography/p/OwlHouse.htm
  
  Helen Elizabeth Martins ('Miss Helen') is considered South Africa's foremost Outsider Artist. (Outsider Art was first recognized by the French artist Jean Dubuffet, who coined the term 'Art Brut', or Raw Art, and described it as "fantastic, raw, visionary art created by individuals often maladjusted, with no art training, who work outside the mainstream of the art world.")
  Helen Martins was born on 23 December 1897 in Nieu Bethedsa, a small and isolated Karoo village in South Africa's Eastern Cape, the youngest of six children. She gained a teaching diploma after attending school in Graaff-Reinet (the nearest town to Nieu Bethesda, approximately 50 km away) and in 1919 moved to the Transvaal to begin working as a teacher.
  
  In 1920 Helen Martins married a fellow teacher, Willem Johannes Pienaar. Pienaar also worked as a dramatist, and the couple traveled together appearing in theatrical productions around the Transvaal, in Cape Town, and Port Elizabeth. The marriage, however, was rocky, and Helen Martins left her husband on several occasions. They divorced in 1926 after Pienaar abandoned Martins for another woman.
  
  Helen Martins Returns to Nieu Bethesda:
  
  Around 1928 Helen Martins returned to Nieu Bethesda and spent the next 17 years looking after her ailing and elderly parents. Martins' mother died in 1941, and the father in 1945. Left with few prospects in a marginalized Karoo village, Martins became increasingly reclusive and isolated from the local community. Known to the residents as 'Miss Helen' and thought of as a strange and rather outlandish character, she shied away from general contact, and began transforming her house and garden.
  
  Helen Martins' art was greeted with derision and suspicion from the village. Despite crippling arthritis, and the amputation of her small toes (her feet were disfigured from wearing narrow shoes) which left her unable to wear anything but slip-ons on her feet, Martins decorated her home with 'glass and light'.
  
  Although she avoided people in general, once a year at Christmas she would open up the house and invite the locals to visit, enhancing the mirrors, murals and crushed-glass coated walls with the light of many candles.
  
  Creation of Helen Martins' Outsider Art:
  
  In 1964 Helen Martins employed Koos Malgas, an itinerant sheepshearer, to help her make the cement-and -glass statues which fill the Camel Yard outside her house. Formally the garden, this sculpture yard had over 300 figures and animals. Malgas became her foremost friend and companion, and remained by her side for the last 12 years of her life. Helen's close relationship with her Coloured assistant was viewed with great suspicion by Nieu Bethesda's Apartheid era residents.
  
  Helen Martin's works of art, displayed in the Camel Yard, are a bustling kaleidoscope of cement sculptures. Predominant themes are the nativity, a curious mélange of Christian and Eastern philosophies (particularly the Bible and the writings of Omar Khayyam), as well as a large number of owls. Helen Martins was especially fond of owls and considering them a kind of totem animal - associated with intuition and insight and wisdom.
  
  Helen Martins Commits Suicide:
  
  Helen Martins' eyesight began to fail and in 1976 she took her own life by swallowing a mixture of caustic soda and crushed glass in olive oil. She could not bear the thought of going blind - a great theme in her life and work is light - and she was worried that she would be taken away from her life's work. She was discovered shortly after taking the mixture and removed from Nieu Bethesda to hospital in Graaff-Reinet, where she died three days later, on 8 August 1976.
  
  Koos Malgas remained for another two years before relocating to Worcester, but returned in 1991 to assist in the restoration of the Owl House which had been declared a national monument and was supported by the newly created Owl House Foundation. It had been Helen Martins' greatest wish that the Owl House and Camel Yard be preserved as a museum.
  
  More on Helen Martins and the Owl House
  
  Helen had a difficult childhood. Her father was domineering and subversive, and her mother (who Helen adored greatly) was very sickly for most of Helen’s life. Helen’s father contracted stomach cancer, and this ailment apparently amplified his vile nature – he became very abusive in the latter part of his life. Unfortunately Helen had to return to her childhood home after completing a diploma from a nearby college, in order to care for her ailing mother and father. Her mother’s passing in 1941 devastated Helen and she “apparently slept in the room with her mother’s coffin” after her passing.
  After Hester’s death, Helen refused to have anything to do with her father and a social worker was called in to look after him.
  After Piet’s death, Helen bricked up the windows of his room, painted it black and affixed the words “The Lion’s Den” to the exterior. Nobody was allowed to enter and Helen had a fierce and mangy cement lion constructed to guard the door.
  
  23-12-1897
  6-2-1898
  Nov 1914
  1915-1918
  19197
  7-1-1920
  Jan 1921
  1922-1925
  Born - Nieu Bethesda
  Baptized - Nieu Bethesda
  .<i: •
  Passed Standard VII Examinations - Nieu Bethesda
  Opleidingskool - Graaff-Reinet
  Taught at Wakkerstroom?
  Married to Willem Johannes Pienaar at Nieu Bethesda. The couple lived on her brother Peter's farm at Wakkerstroom
  Taught at Cullinan Govt. School, Premier Mine Seemingly with Johannes Pienaar, at least at times, as they appeared in theatrical productions together. However she left him on and off during this time 29-9-1925 Helen finally left her husband and went home to Nieu Bethesda 25-5-1926 Officially divorced from W J Pienaar 1926 to +1-1927129 Unknown, possibly working at Muizenberg +1-1927/29 Returned to Nieu Bethesda to look after sick mother
  4-9-1939 Hattingh family move to Nieu Bethesda 1940 /1941 Relationship with Johannes Hattingh begins
  10-1-1941 Death of Helen's mother - Nieu Bethesda
  1-2-1945 Death of Helen's father - Nieu Bethesda
  + 1- 1945 Started work on transforming interior of house
  1947 Hattingh family returned to live in Peddie
  4-7-1952 Marriage to Jacobus Johannes Machiel Niemand - the marriage only lasted
  for between 6 weeks and three months
  21-5-1953 Offically divorced from J J M Niemand
  +1- 1956/8 Death of Johannes Pienaar (during Korean War) USA
  16-2-1963 Death of Johannes Hendrik Hattingh at Peddie
  +1- 1964 Koos Malgas started working at The Owl House
  1968 Death of Alida Martins (Helen's sister)
  Sept 1971 Death of Mrs Estelle van Schalkwijk (friend)
  +1-AugI972 Death of Mrs Lettie Kritzinger (friend)
  1973/4? Met Jill Wenman and Francie Lund
  5-8-1976 Helen drinks caustic soda
  8-8-1976 Death of Helen
  Nov 1989 The Owl House provisionally declared a National Monument

Details of Joodjie's family with Willem Johannes Pienaar

Details of Joodjie's family with Jacobus Johannes Machiel Niemand

Details of Joodjie's family with Johannes Hatting