{"person":[{"sourceId":{"label":"Source ID","value":"506"},"lastName":{"label":"Last Name","value":"Finster"},"endDate":{"label":"Death Date","value":"2001"},"displayName":{"label":"Name","value":"Howard Finster"},"objects":{"label":"Objects","value":[{"objectTitle":"Unknown Disciple","objectNumber":"1987.7.6","objectID":"249"},{"objectTitle":"Train","objectNumber":"1985.25.1","objectID":"793"},{"objectTitle":"Better for a Man to Have a Mill Stone Tied about His Neck and Cast into the Midst of the Sea Rather than to Offend one of God's Little Children. Be Careful Please.","objectNumber":"1998.10.22","objectID":"2513"},{"objectTitle":"Delta Painting","objectNumber":"1985.35.33","objectID":"217"},{"objectTitle":"If A Shoe Fits, Wear It","objectNumber":"2018.19.23","objectID":"2738"},{"objectTitle":"Homecoming in Heaven","objectNumber":"2000.26.2a,b","objectID":"2741"},{"objectTitle":"Queen Victory","objectNumber":"2021.8.2","objectID":"7978"},{"objectTitle":"And the Angels Ministered Unto Him","objectNumber":"2021.8.1","objectID":"7977"},{"objectTitle":"Are you ready to meet God, Be Ye Ready","objectNumber":"2022.6.35","objectID":"8363"},{"objectTitle":"Untitled (Dog)","objectNumber":"2018.10.1","objectID":"6767"},{"objectTitle":"\"Visions of Heavens Beyond Life After Death\"","objectNumber":"2022.6.37","objectID":"8365"},{"objectTitle":"Untitled","objectNumber":"2022.6.36","objectID":"8364"},{"objectTitle":"Untitled (Nahum 2.4 The First Horseless Chariot)","objectNumber":"2015.18.1","objectID":"5230"}]},"geographyDied":{"label":"Died","value":["Rome","Valley Head","Summerville"]},"biography":{"label":"Biography","value":"Howard Finster started preaching at sixteen, and every artwork he created was part of a lifelong sermon. \u201cI don\u2019t consider bein\u2019 an artist at all,\u201d he said in a 1992 interview. \u201cMy art is visions from God.\u201d Although his magnum opus was his <em>Paradise Garden<\/em> in Summerville, Georgia, northwest of Atlanta, which became a place of pilgrimage for folk art fans and believers alike to witness the spiritual art environment\u2019s proliferating signs and assemblages, he made a dizzying number of works\u2014over forty-six thousand. He formed religious figures from sand-cast concrete, crafted mosaics from bottle caps, painted scenes of heaven on plywood with mirrors and light bulbs providing a celestial glow, and shaped sculptures of trains from wire. The consistent element was his frenetic text, which always reads like fragments of a stream of consciousness, calling on the viewer to be redeemed and saved.Born in rural Alabama in 1916, Finster frequently preached at Southern tent revivals before, in 1976, he had a vision to \u201cpaint sacred art.\u201d The handiness he brought to his various odd jobs of bicycle repair, carpentry, bricklaying, and plumbing was applied to his eclectic art. With his charismatic magnetism, banjo, and blue suit, he even achieved celebrity status, designing album art for R.E.M. and the Talking Heads and appearing on Johnny Carson\u2019s <em>The Tonight Show<\/em>.Finster was a national figure by the time of his death in 2001; his obituary in <em>The New York Times<\/em> described him as \u201ca Baptist preacher whose evangelical faith, outgoing personality and compulsive work habits made him one of the most prominent and prolific folk artists of the 20th century.\u201d His <em>Paradise Garden<\/em> is still preserved, and although visitors are no longer greeted by Finster himself offering sermons and songs, they can encounter his messages in every corner of his creation, in which, as he once inscribed above the entrance, \u201cI took the pieces you threw away / And put them together by night and day / Washed by rain and dried by sun / A million pieces all in one.\u201dAllison C. Meier, 2025Text written as part of \u201cRethinking Biography,\u201d an initiative supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS)."},"geographyActive":{"label":"Active","value":["Rome","Valley Head","Summerville"]},"geographyBorn":{"label":"Born","value":["Rome","Valley Head","Summerville"]},"beginDate":{"label":"Birth Date","value":"1916"},"firstName":{"label":"First Name","value":"Howard"},"primaryMedia":{"value":"https://collection.folkartmuseum.org/internal/media/dispatcher/9287/full"},"names":{"label":"Names","value":["William Howard Finster","Howard Finster"]},"displayDate":{"label":"Date","value":"(1916\u20132001)"},"altNums":{"label":"Alternative Numbers","value":"38"},"id":{"label":"Id","value":"150891"}}]}