{"id":24523,"date":"2024-03-15T19:27:05","date_gmt":"2024-03-15T23:27:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/?p=24523"},"modified":"2024-03-15T19:31:26","modified_gmt":"2024-03-15T23:31:26","slug":"finster","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/2024\/03\/15\/finster\/","title":{"rendered":"To Spread God\u2019s Word, Howard Finster Created 46,991 Artworks. New Exhibit Reveals Method To His Productivity.<\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

As the story goes, in 1976, when Howard Finster was 60, the Baptist preacher was painting a bicycle when he got paint on his hand and fell into a vision.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI looked at that finger, after I got the paint on it, to see if too much paint on it, and there was a face, a human face in that paint, eyes, mouth, all that. That finger just talked to me, said, \u2019Paint sacred art,\u2019\u201d Finster told Don McGill and Susan Wallner for their 1992 video \u201cHoward Finster: Man of Visions.\u201d<\/a> \u201cAnd I said I can\u2019t do that, professionals can, but not me, I\u2019ve seen them, but not me. And it come to me one more time, \u2018How do ya know? How do ya know?\u2019 And it just dawned on me: How do ya know? How do ya know?  And from that then I started painting art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cGod told him you only need to paint 5,000. He kind of took that and went for gold,\u201d says Mary Shewan, a curatorial archivist fellow at Paradise Garden, the visionary environment that Finster created on a 2.5-acre plot in Summerville, Georgia. By Finster\u2019s own count, he eventually produced 46,991 artworks, plus Paradise Garden. He became one of the most famous folk artists of the 20th century\u2014appearing on Johnny Carson\u2019s \u201cTonight Show\u201d and painting album covers for the bands Talking Heads and R.E.M. \u201cIt was almost like a constant desire to produce work because God told him to and to speak the word of God. \u2026 I\u2019ve been put on earth to spread a message so I have to do as much as I can of it.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The method behind Finster\u2019s enormous productivity is the focus of the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive\u201d<\/a> at the Paradise Garden Museum & Visitor Center in Georgia from Jan. 27 to April 28, 2024.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Howard
Howard Finster. Included in the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Finster, who died at age 84 in 2001, produced in quantity by making numerous varying versions of the same image. The show features wooden templates that Finster used to cutout wooden multiples of an image that he would then paint\u2014angels, devils, Coke bottles, George Washingtons, cats, elephants, kangaroos, giraffes, rabbits, dinosaurs. \u201cHe called them \u2018dimensions,\u2019\u201d says Shewan, who organized the exhibition.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The show also includes molds from which he cast the Christian Virgin Mary and her baby Jesus, fruit, butterflies, horses and other sculptures embedded in the concrete wall along Knox Street at the front of the garden. Shewan says, \u201cEvery mold on the wall it\u2019s somewhere on the wall at the front gate in the mosaic garden.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe didn\u2019t make the molds. It was like if I have these base things I can make more of what I want to produce,\u201d Shewan says. \u201cWith the garden, his intention was to create a safe space for humanity, almost a Noah\u2019s Ark, if you will. His desire to produce more in the garden was I want to give this space as much love and as much energy as I can so that it can continue to be a safe space and refuge.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The templates and molds were found in a building at the mosaic garden end of the \u201cRolling Chair Ramp\u201d that bridges Paradise Garden. The structure is called Pauline\u2019s\u2014after Finster\u2019s wife, for whom he built it. But she didn\u2019t need it, so Finster used it for storage. Shewan says, \u201cThey knew it was there, but it [the molds and templates] had never been seen by anyone other than the people who worked there.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe was very systematic despite him being considered a relatively free-form artist \u2026 He knew he was getting exactly what he wanted each time. The dimension itself wasn\u2019t what was sacred, it was what he was putting on the dimension that was sacred. So he could spend more of his time focusing on the sacred part of the art.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some of the templates “are not in a state to be shown. Some of them have faded with time. Some were cut on super-thin wood, so some have been snapped off or are missing things.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI wanted to pick cutouts that people could recognize from some of his most notable paintings,\u201d Shewan says. \u201cI also wanted to show the evolution of how how he did the cutouts.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Howard
Howard Finster. Included in the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAt the very beginning, he was kind of using just what he had around. So he was using thick pieces of wood,\u201d Shewan says. \u201cThat\u2019s not very conducive to producing multiples, and producing all the work he needed to produce.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThen he moved to thinner pieces of wood,\u201d Shewan says. And the template for the ant is cardboard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHe spent his life dedicated to art,\u201d Shewan says. “He was a biblical man before anything else. \u2026 He believed he was preaching through art. He was preaching through art. He did not stop producing. \u2026 When he got his vision he did everything in his power to produce as much sacred art as he could. \u2026 I think if anything that\u2019s just a clear display of how much he believed in what he was doing and how the word of God made him believe in himself.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Howard
Howard Finster. Included in the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Shewan says, \u201cHe was such an interesting person. His interests were so vast. I think it\u2019s incredible that we have cutouts of angels, and it\u2019s considered some of the greatest displays of angels in American art history, but then you turn around there\u2019s an ankylosaurus down the wall, then there\u2019s a House Divided. \u2026 Then you turn the corner and there\u2019s a kangaroo.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHis final step wasn\u2019t finishing the last dot of paint, the final step was making sure the painting was known and writing on it,\u201d Shewan says. Finster would “write a [Bible] verse or write a thought he had about God.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shewan says, \u201cEven if the images themselves weren\u2019t sacred, what made them sacred was Howard.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n\n\n\n

If this is the kind of coverage of arts, cultures and activisms you appreciate, please support Wonderland by contributing to Wonderland on Patreon<\/a>. And sign up for our free, occasional newsletter<\/a> so that you don’t miss any of our reporting. (All content \u00a9Greg Cook 2024 or the respective creato<\/em>rs.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Howard
Howard Finster. Included in the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster. Included in the exhibition “Behind the Brain of a Genius: Finster’s Cut-Outs, Dimensions and Molds from the Paradise Garden Archive.”<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
\"Howard
Howard Finster\u2019s Paradise Garden at Summerville, Georgia, June 25, 2019. (Greg Cook)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As the story goes, in 1976, when Howard Finster was 60, the Baptist preacher was painting a bicycle when he got paint on his hand and fell into a vision. \u201cI looked at that finger, after I got the paint on it, to see if too much paint on it, and there was a face, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":24526,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[100,1008,582],"tags":[56,461,1082,1083,462],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24523"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24523"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24523\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24535,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24523\/revisions\/24535"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24526"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24523"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24523"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gregcookland.com\/wonderland\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24523"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}