Theo Megaw

Theo Megaw is a recluse. He lives and works between the slumbering mountains and the wide skies at the southern tip of the African continent.

Follow the ragged thread of road that is Prince Alfred Pass and you come to his place. The cottage is built of earth and rough brown stones from the mountains. It was a ruin when Megaw first came to it. Using pine from the coastal plantations he put in a floor, ceiling, doors and windows and put in pipes for water from a mountain stream.

His studio stands a little way from the cottage. It is whitewashed inside with good natural light. “In the summer I can really work each day. In the winter the days are too short.” A fine cloth of plaster and marble dust lies over everything: finished pieces, pieces in the making, clay bins, stands, tools, sacks of plaster of paris and cement fondu, mixing basins and odd bits of farm machinery rusted ochre and red unrecognizably into frilly patterns.

A bitch that looks like a jackal suckles a mass of writhing puppy shapes outside the door. Two ginger cats sidle in; they keep the rats and mice away.

Megaw is a man of medium build, blond with beard close cropped. He is dressed in farm labourers’ overalls, spattered with plaster of paris. His hands are surprisingly small for a sculptor’s, yet there is strength in his handshake.