Newspaper Page Text
8-B
The Summerville News, Thursday, November 12, 1987
from page 1-B
mainstream, these men and
women live sot;l\:ldedlnin the
away. Now major gznenes ung
dealers Lhrwggzut the country
are collecting their work.
Af!;?,c ll:ecause their pieces
can stunning prices, a
cottage indust&:s building
throughout the South. Already
le prowl the countryside
mng for odd front yards, the
telltale sign that a fofi'( artist is
near. Quite often, the folk ar
tist is a shy eccentric easily
bowled over by offers of a few
thousand dollars for a
truckload of paintings and
sculptures, unaware that
they re worth many times that
amount after a bit of careful
promotion.
Finster began painting
after he experienced a revela
tion in 1976. He repaired
bicycles at the time, he says,
“and I was painting with my
fi%er so I could do it smooth.
I dipped it in white paint and
I saw a human face looking in
to my face on my finger, and I
had a blush feeling, telling me
to paint sacred art.”
Even by then, artists,
students, and reporters had
discovered the way to Penn
ville because of Finster's
Paradise Garden, a nearby
swamp that he had spent
decades turning into a 2’z-acre
ghantasmagoria. Forget Rock
ity: The centerpiece of
Paradise Garden is a
homemade church, a brightly
colored, rickety thing that
looks like a colossal three-layer
cake. Parked nearby is an old
Cadillac covered with portraits
of the famous and the obscure.
Concrete paths spin out from
there, winding through tower
ing monoliths, one built entire
ly of bicycle frames, another of
hubcaps, another of television
sets.
Every square foot is
cramme(i with goodies big and
small, and on them iang
messages from the Reverend.
A sign over a fire extinguisher
says, “No Fire Extinguisher in
Hell." Another sign says,
““Howard thinks since the
world has begun with a
beautiful garden that it should
end with one.”” On some of the
paths, muscadine vines form a
roof cover at about six feet. Oc
casionally, there's a little hut
with shelves teeming with
every item imaginable: At face
level, for example, you run up
on a camp-size mayonnaise jar
in which a wide-mouthed rat
tlesnake sinks into the ooze of
its own bodily decay.
Out on the other side rises
'SI B B
AL
H; 550/ ¥
om|m:
0 e ol
CATO=
Wal-Mart MONDAY-SATURDAY 10 A.M.-9 P.M.
Shopping Center SUNDAY 1-6 P.M.
* Less * Wal-Mart * Less * Wal-Mart Sells for Less * Wal-Mart Sells for Less * W Q el Bl
NOW ONLY AP
. PV S TR oy
| smos - TS
[* - 3
= (A
E Plus a 95¢ Sitting Fee BT \! : ’/% ’ v " ’ ,S'l’
] 13 COLOR PORTRAITS wrrUeY O
H ONE Bxlo® TWO sx7s* « TEN WALLETS (Il LT = | I B
w § ? Vo AL ,71/4,’ | B
{5200 OFF ||| S || |
s : . :
3 One Coupon Per Subject * d | B
4 Save $2.00 ON OUR REGULAR A e (I P
* $9.95 portrait package. & 7 i m
M This Coupon Valid Thurs., Fri. Only 1 » L?’ 'B
;' Advertised specials include traditional poses only. Limit one special ] ’ :‘,{f;f'.fi W v !? §
Bl package per subject. Black and white backgrounds and special e ,"’ . § =
b effects portraits NOT available in adwnisupq package. | O 4 f ; g
B e s e - V- Vil | K
2 Thursday Through Monday, I | B
@ Nov. 12 - Nov. 16 RS A 3
4 Daily 10:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m. “ B
-E Sunday 12:30 - 5:00 p.m. EARLY B/RD SPEC/AL =
£ 14 TRION ROAD :
g ALL AGES ¢ FAMILIES o merican §
: SURAMEE T SA- GROUPS « INDIVIDUAL %—Lw.‘o—s .
; WA LMA RT Groups $1.50 extra per person QC——-——-— ,’:'
- b Poses our selection. WE KEEP AMERICA SMILING 4
TSR DRESENT THIS AD TO PHOTOGRAPHER IESEEETTIE
Magazine Debates Folk Art ‘Exploitation’
a compost heap packed with
another gunhon‘saoitdrink
bottles: Par-T-Pak, Yoo Hoo,
Fanta Orange, Chocclot,
Double.'COh;'eek A ;;::llile
memdenngc provi
only sound, a constant and
creepy trickling. In a cement
hill embedded with thousands
of ceramic shards, small plastic
m. specks of mirror, and col
pebbles, there's a little jar
containing a child's tonsils.
Around another corner is a ce
ment shoe eight feet long and
six feet high.
Back inside the house,
Finster is hanging up his
phone. A young Opgenheimer
1s coming over to buy some
work,”" he says. His little slits
barely open: ““You know, a
relative of the scientist Op
penheimer!” A little later, a
well-groomed college student
walks in, and the Reverend
wastes no time.
““Look here! 1 iot orders to
Key West! I got them to Seat
tle! See this! They buy my
paint cans after paint’s built up
on them, and they buy my old
wipe rags too!”" An unpleasant
deja vu sweeps over me.
Finster has the entire tour
memorized, for customer and
journalist alike.
With Oppenheimer in tow,
the Reverend storms into the
next room, leaving me alone. I
look at one of his paint cans
with a volcano building up on
it. I pick up a painting on a pot
ted meat lid. I see a framed let
ter from Nancy Reafin Beside
me are pictures of Mona Lisa
and George Washington, each
with a Bible verse. A profound
question comes to mind: Just
what in the hell is going on
around here?
There are two answers to
that question. The first is that
the rarefied domain known as
the Art World has embraced a
few folk artists such as the
Rev. Howard Finster. The se
cond is that wherever there's
art, there's money.
The takmg’ up of folk art by
the Art World began in Europe
at the turn of this century
when painters such as Pablo
Picasso and Jean Dubuffet
sougsht inspiration from other
kinds of art: tribal art in Africa,
native art in Polynesia, and
even the art of the insane. The
latter especially intrigued the
artists of the day, and it was
dubbed “l'art brut,” or “raw
e
In the 19505, a handful of
American avant-garde artists
found the same kind of insfpira
tion, only theirs came from
“‘outsider’’ artists in the
backwoods instead of in the
asylum. The avant-garde was
abetted in the 1960 s by
students who studied folklore
and fanned out across the
counug with a new respect for
“outsider’’ work.
One of these students, an
artist himself, is Andy Nasisse,
now associate professor of art
at the University of Georgia.
Nasisse has uncovered a hand
ful of folk artists and is intox
icated b{l the rawness and fplm
ty of their work. He fairly
swoons when talking or writing
about it ...
Other members of the Art
World share not only Nasisse's
passion but, it seems, his
thesaurus. ““They're transmit
ters and receivers,”’ says Ran
dall Morris, one of t[":’e first
New York gallery owners to
cater exclusively to this kind of
folk art. “They are batteries.
They are right in the middle of
the cultlure that we step
over...
Not everyone is so giddy,
however. Traditional f(fiL ar
tists such as basket weavers
and quilters have been left
home while Finster and his ilk
are sigping wine in Atlanta,
New York and Venice. Those
people left behind are not hap
py. Among their most ar
ticulate defenders is John
Vlach, director of the Folklife
Program at The George
Washington University iln
Washington, D. C.
“Crack this conspiracy,”
Vlach hisses into the t,efephone.
The words tumble out of his
mouth almost faster than he
can say %erg “hlt'i a f;aug
tuat the New Yor!
gretrr:eestablishrgent. You know
the book, The Painted Word?"’
he asks, referring to Tom
Wolfe's famous expose of the
emptiness of modern art.
“Well, this is The Finger
Painted Word.”
‘‘Howard Finster's a
wacko,” Vlach says. “Howard
Finster and these others are ec
centric to any normal image
Southerners hold about
themselves, but it's good
enough for Northerners, for
Yankees, who always look at
all Southerners as crackers
anyway, as weird, as inbred,
full of Eellgra and cholera and
any other disease, biological or
psychological.
“Folk art,”” Vlach con
tinues, without encourage
ment, “‘is any funny looking
pfilir}l‘tilng.f}){h scgge guy who his
slightly o e ,a who
Lafi(s g,o God amfeGogur{mves
his hand across the canvas.
And the serious bearers of
tradition —the potters, the
quilters — are going to take
backstage. Their work is de
nounced as a mere craft.”
Despite Vlach's jeremiads,
folk art has one mooring that
will keep it in the galleries for
a long time: money.
Before a folk artist is
discovereld —or, to putl it more
accurately,”’ proper ro
moted”’ 2 hispwgrk Zanp be
bought very cheaply. A few
thousand bucks can put you in
touch with half a lifetime’s
painting. In fact, this happens
so often that one North
Carolina organization, The
Jargon Society, tries to help
new%y discovered folk artists
cope with fame, money, and
visitors who prey on their kind
ly natures.
The horror stories abound,
says William Fagaly, assistant
director for Art at the New
Orleans Museum of art .. .
Howard Finster was
discovered by dozens of people,
but one of the first men to
recognize his potential was a
dealer and collector named Jef
frey Camp. Finster and Camp
eventually had one of those
loud falling outs for which the
Art Worlf is famous, and at
this point the story has been
repeated and embellished and
slanted so often that it's hard
to say exactly who did what to
whom. Although no one will
discuss the Finster-Camp im
broglio for attribution, the
story appears to go something
likecthis: L
am show u at
Finst,er's[x) Paradise Gargen in
1977. He befriended Finster
and offered him money for
some of his best gaintings -
the sum of SI,OOO for 100 pain
tings has been mentioned —
and Finster sold them to him.
Eventually, the relationship
began to strain, and
knowledgeable artists and
friends agvised Finster to drop
Camp. Finster did, and later he
even consulted a friend who is
an attorney to see if there was
some way to get Camg to
return the paintings. To date,
there have been no legal pro
ceedings. Finster claims Camp
sold one of his pieces last year
for SIO,OOO ang that he never
saw a dime of the profit. “It
breaks my heart,”” says
Finster.
To say that Camp denies all
this is an understatement. The
price he paid was $1,200, he
says, and that was for 27 £:lm
tings (although Camp admits
he acquired manfi' more later —
for ““‘many thousands of
dollars’). Camp says Finster
simply bolted wien a more pro
minent representative — inter
national dealer Phyllis Kind,
whom Camp introduced to
Finster — entered the picture
and offered the artist a better
opportunity. Camp says he
never sold an individuar work
for more than $2,000 and that
Finster is confusing the
reported SIO,OOO sale with
Camp's recent sale of 75
Finster pieces to another
dealer. “That was a bailout
deal for me,” says Camp,
“because Howard had flooded
the market.” How much was
this “‘bailout deal” worth to
Camp? Well, Camp doesn’t
want to say.
Camp rightly points out
that when he was buying folk
art, the Art World wasn’t in
terested and Finster was a real
gamble. Camp himself did the
trailblazing promotion. He is
credited with a Life magazine
cover story in 1980 that
created an important wave of
interest. ‘I was a pioneer,”
Camp says, ‘“‘and you know
how to recognize a pioneer.
He's the guy with his face in
the mud and arrows sticking
out of his back...”
Back in Howard Finster's
house, it's midnight, and he
hangs up the phone after talk
ing shop with a fellow revival
preacher. It touches something
in him. He picks up a square
lastic box, the king you store
Feftovers in. He fills it with
Raisin Bran and begins eating
and talking. All day long, I
have heard Howard Finster the
salesman. Suddenly a Howard
Finster I have not heard
emerges: e
“When I was a little boy,”
he says, ‘I read about the
crucifix, and I cried. I wished
I could have been there to give
Him a glass of water. I grew up
and realized I could give Him
that glass of water. I preached,
and now I paint, and I do
everything for God.
‘‘Because the world is wick
ed!"" he suddenly shouts. ‘‘You
see what they're doing to
Reagan? The're trying to kill
him! And him alreaEy sick!
The Bible says if you have a
fault with your brother, you go
to him and talk to him! They
don't even give him a chance to
defend himself!
“And they're trying to
teach everyone about sex! No
one teaches an elephant or a
gnat about sex! You tell so
meone about sex before their
time, and they'll do it or die!”
Finster stands up, hovering
over me. One hand grandishes
his container of Raisin Bran,
the other is poking at me.
“Now they're telling people
that the Earth formed itself
and telling them that people
came from monkeys! But the
inside of the Earth is like a
body with veins! And God is
the engineer!"
Finster's eyes open wide for
the first time all d:}?'. and veins
bulge in his neck. He grabs the
box of Raisin Bran with his
free hand. ‘The world is filled
with terrorists! Terrorists
could be shooting needles
throu%)l:)the sealed gag in this
cereal box!"" He shoves the box
in my face. “The¥('re trained to
do that! It's Khrushchev's
technique of war! He said it
before he died! And they've
been doing it ever since!"
He's in a full rage now,
;})‘lastic container in one hand,
aisin Bran box in the other.
The phrases roll out in perfect
evangelical cadences. gepittle
and specks of Raisin Bran fly
across the room.
“The world is wicked! And
God ain’t going to put up with
it any more! He's going to rain
down plagues! New ones!
Plagues IE; radiation and
leukemia and AIDS! People
are wickeder than they were in
Noah's time! I'm like a second
Noah! I'm warning the world
of plagues!”
Now I know what's going
on around here. I know w%\at's
going on with the dealers, the
pickers, the collectors, and the
academics. They 're doing what
they always do with art. But
it's the Rev. Finster. .. and
the others like them who con
tinue to baffle — until you
realize that they're the only
ones in this business who don't
think of themselves as artists.
If all the excitement and at
tention surrounding them were
to vanish tomorrow, these
“outsiders’’ would simply
return to their cinderblock
houses, their ramshackle
cabins, and their Paradise
Gardens, and go back to doing
what they were always doing:
gettin% out God's Word by
compulsively painting it on
every nearby scrap of tin or
canvas. The aestheticians are
COMPACT Great cooking ina
MICROWAVE OVEN very small space.
:_f‘::——** S « Push-button cook
L =SS RSy e D , e 35- e dti
F’//’T;fl oot
- (s g s I=} « Smooth, easy-to-clean interior
0 0 B + Removabl glass tray
BE e e e | s » Microwave cookbook
== ee i '-:..\. + 5-Year Limited Warranty
I k T e R Now Omy
ne =)
By
Magic Chef- S l 4900
R —
LITTLE-BIG
MICROWAVE OVEN %,M :
e e agic Chef.
iliiifiir il 1 Ej\
é:% C sl pre-selected
Tle = ;
é_,;&dl‘ R e a | cooking
eP= | .
el I il time and exact
— I heatlevel.
(T i
J /{ M4l-6-S|
s> iy Magic Chef
P ¥ * Now only
1 INI B i
. _J L :;B'|§lV§l Tecajxc?r:ttrolfors',ohs state precision S 0”
: MICROVWAVE OVEN . Frontla?r %talgleaangn:; hca?;t
i B * 5-year imited warranty
Complete meal oven capacity
in just 22" of counterspace.
90 DAYS
SAME AS CASH
Jordan Gas Co., Inc.
North Commerce St., Summervilleeßs7-3642 |
right. Goinfi back is something
more sophisticated artists
can't do.
Finster slumps down on his
couch, but he’s still revved. "It
ain't my imagination!" he says.
“You people are always writing
about my imagination! It
makes me sick! I tell them that
what I get comes from another
world! It comes from God!
Finster Blesses Critic
from page 1-B
meone mental, that bought a
whole city block, with a sixth
grade egucation, that has
millions of fans, and that has
7,000 albums coming out of
Atlanta in the next few weeks,
they're just hurting
themselves."”
The Rev. Finster said he
rarely reads articles about
himself; he reads the Bible.
On the premise that some
folk artists are taken advan
tage of, Finster said that may
\g b g e d £ ,
Y - . el . o o
¢ ; ¥Q.B :, ! - g‘
‘ : 8 ” (, 1) 'A~ §» ’j
VP oot " j=ae o B AT iy o
!/ ' \ ,:s._t,; e 4 ae ey
g ‘ % .K - 4 L o N‘:
i & A . , o) ’v v : }%
Troop 7, Summerville’'s newly revived
Boy Scout unit, received a check from the
Fix-It Shop this week to assist with its
scouting program. Shown from left are
assistant scoutmasters ‘Skip”’ Stewart
-~ Service js Qur Business
Over 41 Years
Independently Owned and
Locally Operated
And they always say I got
good imagination! And these
ain't paintings!" He sweef)s his
arm to encompass all the
bizarre works leanin% against
the wall, the colorful visions
that he says are his interpreta
tions of t.five Word of God and
that so many others probably
view as manna from Heaven.
“They 're preaching! And if you
be true sometimes. ‘‘Some peo
ple are honest and some are
not, and I trust all of them, I
love all of them and I don’t
turn against somebody
because they do me dirty, I
pray for them.
“The Bible says, ‘Bless
| them that curse you and pray
for that spitefully use you." If
' you love your enemy and pray
| for him then you might win
i him and if you fight your
| enemy it's like taking gas to
Revived Troop Gets Check
don't listen and if the world
gets any wickeder, then God's
just going to destroy the whole
thing!"
.
The subscription rate for
Southern Mdtjfazine is sls per
year. The address is Southern
Magazine, P. O. Box 3418, Lit
tle %ock, Ark. 72203.
try and put out a fire, it just
gets worse and worse.
Many art experts say that
the Rev. Finster is currentl
the nation’'s most popular folK
artfst and one of the most wide
li_ex}_\ibited living artists at
this time. |
Every magazine and
newspaper that writes a stor;
on him gets it for free, he saitg:
and Finster feels they're his
“missionaries’’ because they
help him ‘“get his message
across and it's important.”
and Lann Cordle, Scoutmaster David
Snow, who received the check from
William “Bill"” Johns and Beverly Johns
of the Fix-It Shop. (Staff Photo).
S e
FINANCING AND
SERVICE AVAILABLE