Georgia's Own - Howard Finster

My Garden is a way for me to get my message out all over the world, And that’s my responsibility, Someday, sometime, people on this planet are going to realize that they need what Howard Finster’s got, whether it’s religion, whether it’s art or whether it’s building a Garden.” -Howard Finster

At the age of 59 in 1976, Howard Finster received a vision from God to create 5000 sacred works. After completing this number in 1985, Finster went on to produce over 46,991 works before his death in October 2001.

Finster often related the story of how he came to be an artist.
“One day I dipped my finger in some white paint and picked it up, and when I picked it up, it formed a face before I ever seen a face, and I turned it around to look and see if I had too much paint and there was two eyes, a mouth, a nose, and everything. A whole face. My finger looked like a face. And there was a feeling just came over me and said, “paint sacred art”. I said “Lord, I can’t paint. I don’t have no education in that”. So I took a dollar bill out of my wallet and started posing on the picture of George Washington. Some kids were around watching me work and that was the first time I felt I was an artist.”

The Man of Vision

Reverend Howard Finster, a self proclaimed  “Man of Visions”, Finster was one of America’s most widely known and prolific self-taught artists producing over 46,991 pieces of art before his death in 2001. He saw himself as a sacred artist, tirelessly recording his visionary prophesies and providing glimpses of a celestial outer space world that God revealed to him. These visionary journeys were very real for Finster, providing a limitless variety of images for his creative endeavors.

Born in rural Alabama in 1916, Finster went on to become a preacher, tent revivalist, and “master of 22 different trades” before building his roadside tribute to inventors the Plant Farm Museum. Later dubbed “Paradise Garden,” this rock and junk encrusted wonderland became the focus of Finster’s life work. In 1976, however, this focus shifted. As he was using his fingers to apply paint to a refurbished bicycle, Finster noticed that the paint smudge on the tip of his finger had formed a human face. A voice spoke to him, saying, “paint sacred art.” Finster began churning out thousands of sermon-laden artworks with subjects ranging from historical characters and popular culture icons like Elvis Presley to evangelistic fantasy landscapes and futuristic cities. Most works are meticulously coated in Finster’s own hand-lettered words and Biblical verses.

To spread his vision to a wider audience, Finster designed record album covers for rock groups such as R.E.M. and Talking Heads, later earning him Record Album Cover of the year by Rolling Stone Magazine. Interviews, films, and his famous appearance on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson further advanced his evangelical message. Finster’s preaching experience and his showman-like personality helped to shape his public persona and ever-increasing celebrity. The industry that surrounded Finster’s name ended up defining his final years. Finster’s intentions remained true to his inner voice—to make sacred art. Well-known and often misunderstood, his position is suspended somewhere between awe for his tireless, faith driven creativity and his esteemed place in the pantheon of contemporary American art. He has been called  both “the grandfather of Southern Folk Art” and “the Andy Warhol of the South.” (Obtained from the Paradise Garden Website)

References

http://paradisegardenfoundation.org/education/about 

http://paradisegardenfoundation.org
https://www.high.org/highlights/howard-finster/