Lessons from the Masters: Howard Finster

A couple of weekends ago, my Lovely First Wife and I traveled to Summerville, GA, to celebrate our 45th wedding anniversary. (Thank you, I couldn’t have done it without her.)

Why Summerville, you ask, particularly if you know Summerville?

Summerville has one — and only one — attraction: Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden.

Short intro: In 1976, Finster was a preacher, a woodworker, and a bicycle repairman. He had already begun creating art, but that year he received a message from God instructing him to paint 5,000 pieces of “sacred art.” And so he did, ending up with over 40,000 pieces of art before his death in 2001.

We stayed in the duplex cottage onsite — they give you a key to the compound! — and made friends with Calvin and Hobbes, who we were informed welcomed treats. (Indeed, after getting a few treats the previous afternoon, they were waiting by the door the next morning and came right on in for more.)

Hobbes, top; Calvin, bottom

Paradise Garden is an insane place. Full disclosure: My first grade teacher, Miss Betty Jim Owings, was from Summerville, and after Finster came to international attention she told us that of course she knew him. He was “crazy as a Betsy bug” was her assessment.

It is a glorious pile of unrelenting creativity.

An old church, bought and enhanced by finster

One of the first pieces I saw sums up our lesson for the day:

A PERSON DON’T KNOW WHAT HE CAN DO UNLESS HE TRIES. TRYING THINGS IS THE ANSWER TO FIND YOUR TALENT.

There. That’s it. You want to be an artist? Composer? Mixologist? Author? Then do it. THERE ARE NO GATEKEEPERS TO KEEP YOU FROM DOING IT.

A few instances.

Even though Finster is most widely known for his paintings, the majority of work at the Garden is sculptural, like this wall:

Or architectural, like this small chapel made of bottles:

Or this one:

…which looks sparkly enough, but then inside:

Then there’s this structure:

Those glassed-in boxes contain inventions that Finster considered world-changing. The structure itself is his “rolling chair ramp,” which he built so that handicapped persons could tour the entire Garden and see the art.

Inside…

…he placed art that others had given to him, like…

But the first piece I saw on the rolling chair ramp made me laugh out loud:

Richard Hill.

Richard Hill is not unlike Howard Finster in many ways: prolific, unrestrained, and quirky. The main difference is that Richard Hill is a professional artist.

How do I know? Richard Hill used to teach art at East Coweta High School, where I was media specialist, which is how I got a friends and family discount when I asked him to create a sculpture representing the element of Fire for the southpoint of my labyrinth a decade ago.

artist richard hill with the southpoint sculpture representing fire.

And here it is, serving its purpose:

In conclusion: Happy anniversary to me and my Lovely First Wife, always collect art from people you know, and TRYING THINGS IS THE ANSWER TO FINDING YOUR TALENT.