Posted on 06/16/2004 5:50:28 PM PDT by MarMema
When Howard Finster died last fall, the nation lost one of its most famous and beloved artists. His works had been exhibited in the Smithsonian Institution and other museums across the country; he had been commissioned to paint covers for TIME magazine and R.E.M. and Talking Heads albums, and had provided a giant mural for the Manhattan headquarters of MTV. Sophisticated art collectors treasured his works, and books and TV specials have been devoted to him.
Yet of Finster's works -- well over 45,000 individual pieces -– nearly every one aimed to convey the Gospel message. He’s also painted covers for Christian artists like Adam Again, and the Newsboys shot a video with him at and around his home.
That's the paradox of Howard Finster. Born the youngest of 13 children in the mountains of northern Georgia, he dropped out of school after sixth grade, and at age 13 heard a call to preach the Gospel. He preached in churches and revival tents all over the region for decades, supporting a growing family by building furniture, repairing bicycles and farming.
Inside Outsider Art
Along the way Finster began to do some painting -- mostly on scrap wood and cut-out panels, depicting angels, heavenly scenes, animals, and portraits with large, luminous eyes fringed with long lashes like the rays of the sun. Then he heard a call to "build a paradise and decorate it with the Bible." (Finster says he received "messages" and "visions" from God throughout his life, starting at the age of three). He bought a plot of wasteland near his home in Summerville, Ga., and called it "Paradise Gardens." On those acres he created artworks, sculptures, paintings, and buildings, always seeking to demonstrate the glory of God.
He didn't leave it up to visitors to guess what he was doing; Paradise Gardens' most prominent feature was hundreds of signs tacked up to explain the Gospel and the lessons the artworks sought to convey. "I built this park of broken pieces to try to mend a broken world," read one sign.
Due to Finster's limited education, correct spelling was not always a feature of his work, but his hard-hitting wisdom made it unnecessary. Another message at Paradise Gardens appeared on an oil-drum lid nailed to a pine tree. Painted sky blue, then inscribed in red and indigo, it read "Dying daily is a greator sacrifice than dying dead." Misspelled, yes, but no less true because of it.
Mister Misunderstood
Yet, even though Finster was very direct, sometimes his admirers missed the point. In 1990 a major exhibition of folk art at the Smithsonian Museum of American Art included his portrait of art collector Herbert Waide Hemphill. Finster portrayed Hemphill standing with a hand on one hip, then filled the background of the painting with messages like this:
"If You Only Had One Sweet Son
And You Gave His Life To Save
Ten Wicked Men. And And They
Returned And Denied That You
Gave Your Only Son For Them
And Said You Child Never Exist
No One Died For Us. Please Go
Right Now And Call You Child To
You And Measure You Love For Him
And Turn And Look At The Most
Sinful Man You Know And
Think If You Would Trade Your
Presus Son For Him. God Is Love."
On the wall next to this painting the show's curators put a plaque to explain the painting. It read, "The historical, popular, and biblical subjects of Finster's portraits embody his concept of the inventor as someone whose creative process will provide the world's salvation."
Finster didn't exactly agree with that interpretation: "Probably some people mean different kinds of salvation. I'm talking about the salvation of Jesus Christ, that's what you gotta have."
That kind of misinterpretation was the first subject I brought up when I went to Paradise Gardens to interview Finster in 1996. Finster was almost 80, weakened by arthritis and diabetes, yet he still painted in bed with his arms propped up. All during our talk he wrote biblical "messages" with a black laundry marker on small paintings he'd already completed.
The Truth
"Some people don't understand nothing about the Bible, 'cause they never have read it," he said when I asked if it was frustrating to be misunderstood. "For 50 years I've had a vision of leading the world to the Holy Bible. I'm asking you to buy your own Bible, do your own reading, and see how simple it is to understand. If you can't understand it, you're pitiful. You're in the same shape I am."
But, I said, some people read the Bible and still don't believe.
"There's a way of proving it to 'em," Finster said. "You give me a person that don't believe in Jesus, just let me have one hour with him, and when I get through with him if he don't believe in Jesus, I consider him to be a fool." The Gospel would prove itself in the heart, Finster believed. "You know what the facts is when you hear it, it don't matter whether you're a theologist or what you are. When you hear me quote the facts a smile comes on your face."
Epitaph
On one of the Paradise Gardens signs, Finster painted himself carrying a large cross. In red letters on the cross it reads: "I have carried this cross from a child and am not about to lay it down. It has become a part of me."
Below the self-portrait Finster wrote his own best epitaph:
"I am Howard Finster, a stranger from another world. My father and mother, my sisters and brother, my wife, my children, my grandchildren have realy never figured me out. For my kingdom is not of this world. Only my Father in heaven knows me on this planet. And thats why I have been strong and happy. When my work is finished I will go back to the other world."
His work is finished, but it continues to work on anyone who approaches his painted "messages" with an open mind. Thanks to Howard Finster, vividly-painted scriptures and sermons hang in art museums and sophisticated homes around the world. Every time an eye scans them the Gospel has another chance to sink in.
Finster ping.
ping
ping
ping
Thanks for the ping!
Reverend Finster's Elvis paintings, for example, are sincere tributes meant to draw the public's attention to an ultimately higher message of salvation. "It's very simple," says Finster, "When Christ called his disciples, he called fishermen, he didn't call nobody from a qualified university."
Yes, I loved that line too! Finster was a treasure. My God Bless his Soul.
In 1976 he(Finster) had a vision of a tall man at his gate in which the Lord directed him to begin painting “sermon art” because, "preaching don’t do much good; no one listens- but a picture gets on a brain cell."
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