Howard seemed unstoppable. He worked night and day, and
entertaining the crowds was part of his work. He had a story
to tell, and he used anything at hand to tell it -- a guitar,
a dance, a brush. A trashcan beside the door of his Folk
Art Church was painted with "Jesus Saves." Someone gave
him a small barrel of nails, and he invented "nail art."
Another time he created a body of art from Plexiglas and
mirrors. He would use anything. As he explained on a sign
in the garden, "I 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." If an object was rightly
used, it was redeemed. Junk could be transformed and used
to the glory of God.
Howard performed his public routine and made you laugh and enjoy yourself. Yet in a solitary corner of Paradise Garden, perhaps in his mirrored room where you were forced to look at yourself in the midst of all the redeemed junk
that is Paradise Garden, you were coaxed to face your eternal destiny. The fun did not negate the seriousness of his message as long as you had eyes to see. If you were able to get him alone and quiet, you would discover that the man behind the showman was very wise. And perhaps you would discover exactly who he said he was -- a true prophet of God.
We will miss Howard Finster the man, but his message remains. As he wrote on "The Great Wild Duck," "... to set the messages plain/to get the story over softly to the brain/I put it down in enamel into indurable wood that in a hundred years it may be understood/reproductions of tapes and storys and films/to reach the millions of them/begening here in Georgia to the four winds of this earth/from my last work of art to my cradle of birth ..."
Howard has created his last work of art here, and that is
sad for us all. But somehow I cannot picture this whirlwind
of a man silenced even in the hereafter. He is merely taking
a breather as one of the resting souls that he loved to
paint. He is waiting for a glorified body to be given to
him upon the return of the Lord, and then he will be off
again. In the meantime, I hope that we will be able to gain
some understanding of what he was so driven to tell us while
he was here. He has done his job well, and now it is up
to us to gain from his wisdom.
Thank you, Howard, for making the messages plain and so very enjoyable. You have truly married the highest and the lowest in your art, and the results are rich indeed -- a monument to human ingenuity under the gracious hand of God.
-- Edward Knippers is a painter and a member of the board of directors of Christians in Visual Arts. He lives in Arlington, Virginia.
It was his Christian message of love through the certainty of hellfire to be avoided and heaven to be gained that compelled him to make some 45,000 works of art, scattered throughout the world. It was a daunting task. He knew that "It will take a lifetime working day and night/To reach the corners of this dark world with my little light," as he wrote. But he did it even though he also knew that "Some will close their curtains/Some will pull down shades," because of his hope that "Some will hear my message, and they will have it made." These lines are from "The Great Wild Duck," a painted cutout my wife and I have in our collection. Like many of Howard's works, it is covered with writing, front and back. 
What allowed Howard to outstrip many of the artists around
him was that he had a message. We have come through a time
when the creation of new media and technologies has given
us a million ways to say nothing. Many artists today have
all the techniques in the world and nothing to say. In such
a world, Howard was authentically counter-cultural. He was
the true outsider artist. He lost the representation of
a Washington art gallery once because they got tired of
his referring to them as infidels. He was not trying to
be unkind, only honest. It is this honesty that gives his
work its prophetic edge. It was with this same honesty that
he responded to a letter from a friend of mine asking for
a small angel. My friend said that he would pay $100 to
$200, whatever the going rate was. Howard wrote back saying
that he no longer shipped his work because sometimes it
broke, so someone would have to come to Georgia and pick
one up. He also added that he only got $35 dollars for that
size angel.
Howard was ever the showman but never the fake. He felt it was his duty to entertain his visitors with songs and stories. Even when he was exhausted from working all night, he wanted you to feel that you were not only welcome but that coming had been worthwhile. When my wife and I first visited Paradise Garden, Howard's wife showed us a quieter version of this Southern hospitality as we waited to see the artist. She invited us to visit the garden and told us there were grapes growing on the far fence. She said that we should help ourselves. Compared to her quiet graciousness, Howard was a P. T. Barnum. But he tried to protect her from the crowds that flocked to their quiet corner of north Georgia to experience both the art and the man.
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