Time Travel Tuesday: Howard Finster

Image via Chat­tooga Coun­ty web­site.

I find a lot of inspi­ra­tion from my Pin­ter­est feed, and today’s Time Trav­el Tues­day is no dif­fer­ent. Jan­na shared a piece by Howard Fin­ster, an Amer­i­can folk artist.

Howard was a “born again” Bap­tist at the age of 13, and began to preach the word of God when he was just 16. He was a pas­tor until 1940 until he began purs­ing art full time. He cre­at­ed a cou­ple of muse­ums in Geor­gia, includ­ing the Gar­den Park Muse­um and the Plant Farm Muse­um (once he ran out of land for Gar­den Park). The Plant Farm fea­tured Bible vers­es on attrac­tions to help peo­ple remem­ber them better.

As he was repair­ing a bike tire one day, Howard had a vision from God telling him that he need­ed to paint sacred art. He was to cre­ate 5,000 (!!) works. His sub­ject ranged from Elvis, George Wash­ing­ton, UFOs, and more. He gained noto­ri­ety for his works, and even col­lab­o­rat­ed with the band REM on their sec­ond album, Reck­on­ing. Since then, his work has appeared on mag­a­zines and more album covers.

Image via Sil­ver Birch Press.

Image via High Muse­um of Art.

Image via Glit­ter Gallery.

Image via The Crick­et Chirps.

Image via Chica­go Art Mag­a­zine.