{"object":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"2738"},"altNumsArchivespace":{"label":"ArchiveSpace","value":["P14.204","P14.2000.4"]},"copyright":{"label":"Copyright","value":"© Howard Finster / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York"},"titlesPopular":{"label":"Title (popular)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"creditline":{"label":"Credit Line","value":"Gift of Jacqueline Loewe Fowler"},"endDate":{"label":"End Date","value":"1977"},"sortNumber":{"label":"Sort Number","value":"2018    19   23"},"invno":{"label":"Accession number","value":"2018.19.23"},"medium":{"label":"Medium","value":"Acrylic and enamel on metal, in original pyrographed wood frame and backing"},"geographyPlaceregion":{"label":"Place/Region","value":"Summerville"},"media":{"label":"Media","value":{"mediaURL":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/3657/full","mediaDepartment":"Object Photographs - promised gift","mediaType":"Image","mediaId":"3657"}},"title":{"label":"Title","value":"If A Shoe Fits, Wear It"},"geographyCity":{"value":"Summerville"},"textEntriesWebsitedisplaytext":{"value":["Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","PAINTING","Born in 1916 on a small farm in Valley Head, Alabama, Howard Finster preached from the time he was a teenager. He had served as a Baptist lay minister in congregations and tent revivals in the rural South for about thirty years when a vision in the 1960s led him to clear swampland behind his house and build Paradise Garden\u2014a complex environment teeming with sculptures, assemblages, hand-painted signs, walkways, small outbuildings, and flowering plants and trees\u2014as a testament of his religious faith. Much later, in 1976, he was directed in a vision to create \u201csacred art,\u201d and he began a vast, numbered output of didactic paintings and constructions. Extensive biblical and personal texts, along with reflections on popular culture, history, and current events, played into his personal cosmology. Because of his talent and his charismatic personality, he found not only artistic recognition but celebrity. Though he became frail and maintained a somewhat softened apocalyptic message, Finster continued to fulfill his evangelical mission through his artistic output until the end of his life.Finster used a shoe as a subject in several works, including a two-ton cement sculpture modeled on one of his work shoes. Of his vast artistic output, he said, \u201cI worked all day and night, without even takin\u2019 my shoes off, for months! I take my catnaps with my shoes and socks on, just like a soldier in the battlefield.\u201d The shoe, he said, \u201crepresents being shod and it saves your feet from all the sharp rocks and it protects you, like Jesus.\u201d Numbered \u201c1000.10\u201d (Finster numbered each of his works in sequence), If a Shoe Fits, Wear It is an early painting featuring a self-portrait emerging from inside a dress shoe.Much like the nursery rhyme\u2019s old woman in a shoe, Finster played the role of caretaker, tending to spiritual well-being as well as physical needs. His textual references are both secular and spiritual, evoking familiar rhymes, homilies, slogans, and proverbs. \u201cEph-6-15 And your / feet shod with / the preparation / of the gospel of / peace\u201d is placed under a \u201cBible Shoe Store.\u201d The painting also features the inscriptions \u201cIf you happen / to get stepped on / just get up and / keep walking\u201d and \u201cIf a mans home / is his castle he / should wear the shoes there and rule his house.\u201d The artist\u2019s neutral palette of browns and grays is enlivened by the painterly brushstrokes of the turbulent background sky and the familiar decorative burnished-wood frame."]},"collections":{"label":"Collections","value":"Paintings"},"titlesDescriptive":{"label":"Title (descriptive)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"geography":{"label":"Geography","value":"Summerville"},"titlesFormer":{"label":"Title (former)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"154095"},"geographyState":{"value":"Georgia"},"titlesArtists":{"label":"Title (artist's/given)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"geographyCountry":{"value":"United States"},"titlesTranslation":{"label":"Title (translated)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"onview":{"label":"On View","value":"0"},"titles":{"label":"Titles","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"},"people":{"label":"Artist / Maker","value":{"displayOrder":"1","personRole":"Artist","personID":"506","content":"Howard Finster"}},"classifications":{"label":"Classification(s)","value":"Paintings"},"textEntries":{"label":"Text Entries","value":["Object information is a work in progress and may be updated with new research. Records are reviewed and revised, and the American Folk Art Museum welcomes additional information.　To help improve this record, please email photoservices@folkartmuseum.org","PAINTING","Born in 1916 on a small farm in Valley Head, Alabama, Howard Finster preached from the time he was a teenager. He had served as a Baptist lay minister in congregations and tent revivals in the rural South for about thirty years when a vision in the 1960s led him to clear swampland behind his house and build Paradise Garden\u2014a complex environment teeming with sculptures, assemblages, hand-painted signs, walkways, small outbuildings, and flowering plants and trees\u2014as a testament of his religious faith. Much later, in 1976, he was directed in a vision to create \u201csacred art,\u201d and he began a vast, numbered output of didactic paintings and constructions. Extensive biblical and personal texts, along with reflections on popular culture, history, and current events, played into his personal cosmology. Because of his talent and his charismatic personality, he found not only artistic recognition but celebrity. Though he became frail and maintained a somewhat softened apocalyptic message, Finster continued to fulfill his evangelical mission through his artistic output until the end of his life.Finster used a shoe as a subject in several works, including a two-ton cement sculpture modeled on one of his work shoes. Of his vast artistic output, he said, \u201cI worked all day and night, without even takin\u2019 my shoes off, for months! I take my catnaps with my shoes and socks on, just like a soldier in the battlefield.\u201d The shoe, he said, \u201crepresents being shod and it saves your feet from all the sharp rocks and it protects you, like Jesus.\u201d Numbered \u201c1000.10\u201d (Finster numbered each of his works in sequence), If a Shoe Fits, Wear It is an early painting featuring a self-portrait emerging from inside a dress shoe.Much like the nursery rhyme\u2019s old woman in a shoe, Finster played the role of caretaker, tending to spiritual well-being as well as physical needs. His textual references are both secular and spiritual, evoking familiar rhymes, homilies, slogans, and proverbs. \u201cEph-6-15 And your / feet shod with / the preparation / of the gospel of / peace\u201d is placed under a \u201cBible Shoe Store.\u201d The painting also features the inscriptions \u201cIf you happen / to get stepped on / just get up and / keep walking\u201d and \u201cIf a mans home / is his castle he / should wear the shoes there and rule his house.\u201d The artist\u2019s neutral palette of browns and grays is enlivened by the painterly brushstrokes of the turbulent background sky and the familiar decorative burnished-wood frame."]},"beginDate":{"label":"Begin Date","value":"1977"},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"1977"},"altNums":{"label":"Alternative Numbers","value":["P14.204","P14.2000.4"]},"dimensions":{"label":"Dimensions","value":"13 3/4 x 19 5/8 x 1/2 \" (34.9 x 49.8 x 1.3 cm)"},"titlesInscribed":{"label":"Title (inscribed)","value":"A Man Lives in his Shoes"}}]}