It was the weekend of Finster Fest, a gathering of folk artists in Dowdy Park in Summerville. I was working in Atlanta at the time, so I headed north that summer day to wander in the fantastical Paradise Garden of Howard Finster. Leland and I have known of his Bible-inspired paintings since the late ‘70s or early ‘80s when we dealt in Americana, folk art, and American Indian goods. Back then self-taught artists like Finster were categorized as ‘outsider’, ‘visionary,’ ‘naïve’ and folk – sometimes all of these, depending on who was writing.

The U.S. Bicentennial spurred interest in all forms of Americana – from colonial furniture to the quilts of Gee’s Bend and the independent visual voices of folks like Finster. We had worked with Dale Eldred and the Kansas City Art Institute to acquire and preserve the works of Jesse Howard. We found Robert E. Smith after seeing his paintings at the Missouri State Fair. Leland found a stack of Edward Patrick Byrne’s paintings of futuristic houses in the back room of a north Missouri antique shop. So my day trip to Summerville Georgia really was a pilgrimage.

In the intervening decades, Finster’s work had been recognized, collected, exhibited and become the subject of academic and museum publications that placed him and likeminded artists in a legitimate cultural context. Catalogued and preserved in museum collections, documented, inventoried and explained as his work is now (the High Museum in Atlanta has a large collection on permanent display), I was curious to see his built environment, Paradise Garden.

Finster’s couple of acres were buzzing with visitors. The small frame house, well decorated by his hand and tastefully expanded by the Paradise Garden Foundation to include a gallery of works, held a small gift shop, a couple of rooms of prints, video room with an interesting documentary playing on a loop. We roamed the garden and buildings freely, wandering from Mirror House (all mirrors inside and out) to Mosaic Garden, past the bicycle tower and Serpent of the Wilderness concrete sculpture. According to the Self Guided Tour booklet, Howard was fascinated by real snakes (“Please stay on the path,” the booklet cautions.) The High Museum has one of his snake sculptures; another was created for an album cover for sort-of-local rock group R.E.M. (from Athens, Georgia). Bits of glass and ceramic are inlaid into meandering concrete sidewalks and rock walls. “I built this park of broken pieces to try to mend a broken world of people who are travelling their last road,” he said in Man of Visions. It is a wondrous place.

It wasn’t always this way. Finster’s 2.5 acres were once a low-lying, swampy place with not much to recommend it. But his vision saw a beautiful garden, with trickling streams and flowering vines and dancing light. A place where angels would appear. And he made it so. He ditched and drained and planted and built. He recycled long before recycling was cool. He organized the leftovers of life and machines – and then made something out of them.

Larry Schlachter, owner of Folk America (www.folkamerica.net), a shop just down the road from Paradise Garden, knew Howard Finster. In his recollection, Howard was not as concerned with maintaining the existing structures as he was with creating more. The Foundation has done a good job of restoring and maintaining the grounds, which had become overgrown and worn. Schlacter handles a number of artists as well as carrying pieces from Finster and family members.

Athens Georgia rock band, R.E.M. graced the cover of Rolling Stone, April 20, 1989, labeled America’s Hippest Band, in an article entitled R.E.M.’s Brave New World by Anthony Decurtis.

Finster did not make the cover himself, but got a five-page color spread inside. “God’s brushman,” David Handelman said, was hip, his art making the album covers for both R.E.M. and David Byrne (Little Creatures).

 

Click on any image to see the full gallery.