Windows and Walls

6 x 8 (Acrylic on canvas board).

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Driving through the small town of Paternoster, I am starting to concentrate on the lovely details that make up the whole of this successful architectural venture. Of course, because this is a rather chatty sort of blog, you must refer to the experts if you want to build a proper West Coast cottage. The information will be available at VASSA ( Vernacular Architecture Society South Africa).

The walls should be roughly plastered. As the first freed slaves and early fisherman a few hundred years ago did not have all the tools, one should try to emulate the true texture of early West Coast cottages! The cement was made in lime kilns as I have explained in an older blog. This lime was also mixed with salt to "paint" the walls white.

Windows and doors were made from the salvaged wood from the many ships that met their ends on this coast. As the ships were painted for protection, the locals would always try to get hold of paint to repaint their woodwork. Blue and sometimes green were the preferred colours. Today the blue shutters, doors and windows give unity to the street scenes. I loved the way the orange aloes complimented the blue shutters in this scene. And please do not miss the rocks on the roof as if they are anchoring the corrugated roof and chimney. Ah, detail is everything!

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Alone with the Mountain

I was so pleased that everyone loved Aurora! Many people fell in love with the town through my blog! It is romantic in a special way as each house has a solitary aura about it. Look at this cheeky cottage with the turquoise veranda: It looks as if it stands there alone with the mountain behind it, although it is on a street in town! There is a West Coast chimney on the outside which means there will be a cosy inglenook for cooking inside the kitchen!

Here is tiny Aurora's role in history: In 1751 the Abby de la Caille arrived from France to measure the earth's meridian. He did his triangular measurement from a barn near Aurora using Strand Street in Cape Town and the mountains of Riebeek West as his other points of reference. Ooopsy, despite his accuracy the earth was found to be mmm....slightly oval! Two centuries later it was found that the mistake could be blamed on the magnetic pull of the the nearby mountains.

Now I can also feel that magnetic pull! For the next painting you will find me taking the 3 -looped pass to visit the top of Piketberg Mountain!

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Piketberg Cottage - When Wikepedia cannot help!

Visiting the tranquil town of Piketberg, I soon realised that this place was a well-kept secret, a place to consider if one really wants to "get away from it all". The roads are running perpendicular with that wonderful mountain and many houses are staggered along the sloping ground. A beautiful nest of townhouses from an earlier era attracted my attention, sharing outer walls, each cottage a little lower than the previous. And then, on one of them was a plain tole-decorated ceramic plaque, a blue gate and on the gateposts two very old paint-encrusted artists' palettes! The legend on the plate: The Katzeff family lived here from 1937 to 1999. Who were these artistic people?

I paged through a lot of brochures on Piketberg as well as a book and the website for the town. And all these articles have the same words: Lithuanian Jews settled in Piketberg, ran businesses as salesmen to the farms and some eventually became highly successful entepreneurs who left for larger centra. The synagogue was bought by the municipality and became a normal small-town museum. I combed the Internet... Where are we going to find out more about that artistic family, their pottery and their painting?

My painting is of a cute cottage in the same row, chosen because it was a shorter style house and more suitable for a painting.

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The Chimney and the Tree

I was determined to find everything interesting there is to paint in my immediate vicinity before exploring the rest of the West Coast. On the farm road close by I stumbled upon this window-less cottage with a rusted, moss covered roof. I saw what looked like a firmly locked little door and the field grasses in front of the cottage was short. Can we deduct from these facts that the place is still lived in? No cat, no chickens?

The house is dwarfed by the large tree, ensuring coolness in summer, especially as there are no windows (a few hidden on the other side, perhaps?). I was also very impressed by the proper West Coast chimney. We need our imagination to call up a kitchen alcove with a wood stove inside, hooks for cups, a pleasant table and chairs that form kitchen- dining- living room all in one, and the flavours of hearty food. On the far side of the house, (to effectively balance the chimney in the painting), is a water catchment tank on a built pedestal.

And that is absolutely all I can say about this cottage! Goodnight, little house, if there is a candle burning in there tonight, no-one will know!

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A Rare Gem (in the mist)

On a misty election morning in Yzerfontein, I expressed the need to find something that is man- made, but quaint and in the West Coast spirit in this town that has every gift Nature can offer in abundance, but has only modern homes. Our friend led us to this lovely cottage. The thatch roof and indigenous plants hug the building and make it look cosy and protected. The ridge on the roof is made by the proper chicken wire and cement method. Together with the always-present rocks of Yzerfontein, it frames a view of Meeurots. This will probably become one of my favourite spots from now on, and maybe I can take my artist friends there to paint, as to the left there is a one-third scale replica of a lime kiln, more rocks and more beautiful views.

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The Schoolmaster's House at Modderrivier

As promised, I went down the hill today to the cottage in the valley. An old man of deep in his seventies lives there. He tells me that he was born on the farm Modderrivier and now lives in what used to be the schoolmaster 's house. He has learnt his Three R's together with about 50 other farm children. Although only having completed a very low grade, he explains to me that the high school children of today will never know everything that is in his head. I agree, because he has seen so much history.

The cottage is almost heart-breakingly pretty. If you add trees in full flower and three rounded toddlers, it becomes even more so. It has the wooded mountain on one side, but catches lots of sunlight and has a view down the valley. The proper large traditional chimney sits on one side. Inside the kitchen is the inglenook containing a wood-firing little Dover stove.

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On the Dirt Road to Darling

Two kilometers from the sea you will start seeing sheep. They are healthy and robust and can display unusual behaviour. A few lazy sheep may lean against a fence, others will lean against them and more and more will do it. Kilograms of fat sheep leaning against the fences, no wonder that the wire often snaps. Behind the grazing sheep, deep in the valley lies a lovely white cottage said to be over a hundred years old. To get there you go off the maintained dirt road onto an unmaintained dirt road, park between lots of farm implements, get out and hike down to the cottage. People are living there and I am going to visit them tomorrow!

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Anybody home?

I found this abandoned cottage about 6 kilometers from home on a dirt road. From the typical style it seems very old. The corrigated iron roof is loose and rusted through. The window glass is out, the doors blocked up. The garden is overgrown with fynbos and only the brave cactus indicates that there once was a garden. A deserted ruin....but then again, who has hung a piece of cloth in the window opening?

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Hendrik and Meraai

Don't ask me how thatch can be fixed with cement, but one can see it regularly in this area! This house in the painting will have a good wood fire for cooking, as can be judged by the large chimney built onto the outside.

I asked for a name suggestion for my painting, but my husband, who always names animals, immediately ventured "Hendrik and Meraai" for the chickens standing sentinel on the sidewalk. This is roughly translatable as Henry and Mary.

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