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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