Marcella the story book person....

Written by Frieda Harmsen
Marcella de Boom is a story book person who lives with her story book dogs in a stoty book house in Cullinan and who paints story book pictures. In short, when you visit Marcella you leave the mundane world for a while and discover something special.

Down one of the almost invisible gravel side streets of the old diamond mining town you will find the Aldebran studio which is the grand name for a most extraordinary house.It pays no attention whatsoever to perspective as it rises like an art-conscious termite heap towards the sky.Its clay walls are pierced with random openings which are filled with glowing stained glass, and it is surrounded by a rambling garden filled with the most unlikely sculptures hiding within the flowering bushes. The medley of dogs welcomes you when you activate the chorus of bells on a ramshackle gate and guide you to the entrance to meet Marcella, a handsome dark-haired woman dressed in colourfull robes(or, on working days, paint bespattered jeans and a t-shirt)with sparkling eyes, a glorious smile and a warm embrace.
This is Marcella who, with the help of various friends, prepared the warm pink clay and built the house.It is not simply a humble little structure, but double storeywith several rooms: entrance foyer which serves as a spacious gallery, living room,bedroom upstairs,kitchen, bathroom.Everything is made from clay, even the bath, but fortunately for the ordinary squeamish, not the toilet; that is conventional ceramic with a wooden cover.
Marcella is an artist who was responsible for several eye-catchingmurals in the town, and who paints and sculpts indefatigably. From time to time she exhibits her work in her gallery when other artists are not on show. And her work is magical. She claims that she bases it on her everyday observations,but her observations are replete with her own ideas, beliefs and fantasies. Thus, when a child preses a light switch, she doesn't merely illuminate a room: she reveals a wonder world.When people meet one another, they encounter new realms of the mind. When evening falls, or day breaks the spirit unveils invisible and profound truths. Everything and everyone Marcella meets is extended and enhanced, all in brilliant colour and sweeping brush strokes. The longer you look at such pictures, the more you discover about the unseen world - the real world, about people and about yourself. No wonder you go away enriched and vow to come backagain soon to see Marcella and her house and her dogs and her fantasy figure in the garden and, on the walls, her magic world that may become yours.