The octopus and the pussycat: how Salon Hecate got underwave

The last few years have been hard — brutally so. So late last year, it was a joy and delight to stumble into a new and unexpected booky project. An art gallery had opened literally across the road from where I live, and one of the first post-pandemic public events I ventured out for was an exhibition opening held there for the brilliant photographer Simon Sephton. Here I met Aimee Kruger, her brother Jared and his spice Bryony, and Tuesday Houston, all artists who run Noordhoek Art Point gallery. (You can meet them here.) Because I’d spent most of the years since March 2020 shackled to the ocean floor by Long Covid, I hadn’t met NOO PEEPLE since forever. Aimee mentioned that she wanted to use the gallery as a creative space for poetry readings and other book events for local authors, but didn’t know where to start. I felt a fizz in my dull, grey, stripped-down brain. It fizzed so much in the following days, I suggested a meeting. And next thing, the synergy was sparkling, our ideas meshed, I had found a space for running workshops on my doorstep, and had gone into business with a bunch of total strangers — who shared green principles, passion for our immediate environs, especially ocean conservation, and a commitment to supporting local businesses, community projects and artists.

But what does this have to do with cephalopods and cats? For decades, my email handle has been Hecate (in Greek myth, a mostly benign but slightly scary witch-goddess, who travels alone, materialising when people are at a crossroads, or in labour, birthing new ideas, projects, life changes). When social media came along, it was easy to become @heckitty. It helps that I am a card-carrying, fur-trailing Mad Cat Lady. And I love puns. So does Tuesday, who is also crazy about octopi and cats (octopusses?), but features mostly the former in her playful artwork. So when we were trying to find a name/brand and a logo for this offshoot of the gallery’s activities, we started using Hecate’s Salon as a joke catch-all description for the many book events (launches, signings, readings, workshops) I was dreaming up. It stuck. We eventually decided that Salon Hecate was slightly more pretentious but marginally less narcissistic than Hecate’s Salon, and I roughed out a little cartoon of a pleased cat reclining on a chaise-longue, 18th-century salon-style. (Fascinating factoid about salons historically: not only were they places to discuss subversive literary, artistic and philosophical ideas, but they often featured women who were otherwise shut out of public life and debate.)

Tuesday took one look and said the cat should be reclining on a tentacle. Our more sensible partners pointed out in vain that this was a splendid in-joke that would be lost on outsiders, but too late — by then Tuesday had done the painting you see here, and I was SMITTEN. The kitty is based on my caramel torty Meg and Tuesday’s two gingers. A chaise-longue is for relaxing, tentacles reach out, the sea is a strong theme throughout the gallery, I’m a sucker for bad puns and wordplay — for me, this picture and the name Salon Hecate resonate (especially given my fondness for my Hedgewitch hat).

And so they designed this glorious image for our big-splash launch on 9 December last year.

It’s all still so brand-new, I am pinching myself, but here’s the broad plan. We’ll be having poetry readings and book events the first Monday of each month — our focus this year will be on poetry and short story collections that fell into the Marinaras Trench of Covid and never got launched as a result. On the second Thursday of each month, we’ll have a writing or editing workshop that will usually chime with the gallery’s focus theme for that month. Workshops will have a fee attached, but entrance to all the other events will be free. So far, the events will be in-person — we all have virtual fatigue, plus loadshedding makes organising online participation tricky. The idea is to create events and opportunities that are refreshing and restorative, that offer good company and conversation, that celebrate what’s good in our local community.

So if you’re in Cape Town, please sign up for the gallery’s newsletter so we can keep you in the loop. Just a taster of what’s coming in the next month or two: tomorrow, the year kicks off with our first poetry launch — come and hear Nondwe Mpuma and Christine Coates read from collections that got upstaged by the pandemic, but are now having their moment in the sun (and waves).* We’re hoping to hold writing workshops on 26 January (“Recipes and memories” — the idea being to help you collate your family’s favourite recipes and the stories they hold) and 31 January (“Writing for pleasure” — finding the freedom to write for pure FUN). (These to be confirmed: final details will be on the gallery website very soon.) On 6 February, we’re putting together an evening of readings “Horsing Around” (yep, Tuesday again) that will bow in the direction of the big equestrian events in Noordhoek that month, and celebrate the month of love, so save the date. On 16 February, we’ll host a workshop “Everything you ever wanted to know about writing sex scenes and were afraid to ask” (I shall wear my erotica writing hat for that one), we’ll be having a reading by some very special poets on 6 March, and on 14 March, we launch Keith Gottschalk’s Cosmonauts (another poetry collection drowned by Covid).

Here are a few pics of the Salon opening, and the gallery and its people. Come visit us yourself: there’s a great coffee-shop right next door, and there’s always someone to chat to.

* Jared is responsible for the palette-cleanser pun. I have found My People.