Newspaper Page Text
n
down to the bone—an honest-to-God brush with supernatural
forces.
Time went on and St. Eom continued to experience periodic
visitations from the Pasaquoyans. He began depicting them in his
artwork as well—scores of paintings, drawings and sculptures.
In every one, they appear bronze-skinned, beatific, sometimes
bearded, and always with a serene countenance. Harboring no ap
parent shame about their physical form, St. Eom's Pasaquoyans are
often naked, though, sure enough, they're sometimes clad in tur
bans or high-tech Pasaquoyan magnetic jumpsuits meant to enable
teleportation, levitation and chakra attunement. (These same ac
couterments also became standard adornments for St. Eom, whose
"RuPaul meets Yaqui medicine man" style shocked, impressed and
sometimes frightened passersby.) Whether they were figments of
his fertile imagination or entities from another astral plane, it was
the Pasaquoyans whom St. Eom clearly sought to emulate. And
it was the Pasaquoyans who instructed him to return to Georgia
and build his very own Pasaquan in Marion County. St. Eom
did just that, too. He worked on Pasaquan for the next 30-odd
years, right up until around noon of Apr. 16, 1986, when Eddie
Owens Martin drew his .38 and shot himself through the head.
He was 77 years old.
What St. Eom left behind is something that can scarcely be
described. One of Georgia's rare and stunning roadside attrac
tions, Pasaquan is a prodigious, sprawling, unfinished work of art;
a Day-Glo spectacle of hand-crafted effigies, murals, sculptures,
sentinels and totems; an architectural collage of sacred art, occult
symbolism, personal material and pop imagery. The place sits on
seven acres of land, and is comprised largely of concrete walls and
sculptures that tie into various other structures, one of which is
an old farm house that St. Eom's mother once called home. There's
also a beadwork suite, a sacred dance circle, a sweat lodge, a
meditation nook, some studio space, a place for St. Eom to make
some cash by telling fortunes and a cool, dry room that must've
been just about perfect for drying, cutting and cleaning an endless
stash of homegrown Marion County ganja.
A cross-cultural thing of weird beauty' plopped down in the
middle of red clay and pine tree scrublands, Pasaquan looks like
it lurched straight out of the Collective Unconscious and sat itself
down on Georgia Highway 137. It is home to a wild collection of
archetypes—suns, moons, serpents, mandalas, genitalia, space
ships, yin-yangs, severed heads, lost continents and bodhisat-
tvas—all forged in concrete, dipped in Technicolor, adorned in
hammered aluminum, then left to dry in the blistering hot sun of
South Georgia. Like St. Eom himself sauntering down a boulevard.
The Paradise is fading away, though. After St. Eom's death,
Pasaquan stayed vacant and empty awhile. Without its creator
around to look after it, the place began to degrade and falter
under the elements. Sculptures fell into decrepitude. Walls began
to crumble. The bright Technicolor hues that once popped out of
the kudzu landscape, vibrating and crackling, grew faint and sun-
bleached. A group of concerned "friends of Pasaquan" eventually
organized, calling themselves the Pasaquan Preservation Society.
They put a caretaker on the premises, spiffed the place up, and
started to dowse for grants to preserve St. Eom's creation. While
they've had some success in that arena, they haven't had nearly
enough. Pasaquan's future, at last, seems pretty certain: Unless
The Pasaquoyans intervene, it will, like the ancient civiliza
tions that held so much fascination for St. Eom, disappear into
oblivion.
Lucky for us, the Pasaquan Preservation Society opens
Pasaquan up to the public from time to time. They give tours
and, since some of the members of the Society knew St. Eom
personally, can even spin a yarn or two about him. I highly rec
ommend this experience. From Athens, it's a three-hour drive—
which is a bit of a haul, sure, but still a day trip. That three-hour
drive, you'll find, is well worth it, too. After all, St. Eom was the
Real Deal Renunciant Artist. And in a world where anything bona
fide or worth a damn seems to be endangered or already extinct,
it's on us to seek out what's good and real, and maybe toss some
change into that bucket over there by the door. It could change
your life. Personally, I believe The Gods smile on those who give
alms. But maybe I'm wrong. Maybe it's the Pasaquoyans.
Pasaquan defies casual observation. It can't be digested in a quick
glance, or even an entire afternoon. To wit: recently, during a visit
to Pasaquan, I watched a group of bewildered tourists drive up
in an Econoline van. They parked and got out. Staring out across
Pasaquan, I heard one of 'em ask "Mama, what is this?!" A kind of
Paradise, really, is what it is.
Jonathan Railey
Pasaquan is located right off Highway 137, just northwest of Buena Vista. GA
It will be open to the public for one Saturday each month from April through
November of this year, beginning on Saturday, Apr. 7. Visit the Pasaquan
Preservation Society at www pasaquan.com tor a full schedule, directions and
more information.
NEWS & FEATURES I ARTS & EVENTS I MOVIES
MUSIC
COMICS & ADVICE I CLASSIFIEDS
MARCH 28, 2007 • FLAGPOLE.COM 9
JONATHAN RAILEY