Outside In
Greg Cootsona
January 1, 2001
The Museum of American Folk Art's forum with Howard Finster, the renowned grandfather of "outsider art," drew a crowd of sophisticated art lovers and theorists, dressed in the requisite stylish dark suits and dresses. The aging Finster, now slowed by arthritis and diabetes, sat at a table in the front, flanked by avuncular art history academics as he responded to a variety of questions on the forum's theme, "Millennial Visions."
I was there as a fan. My first Finster arrived as a gift about ten years ago-a picture he made while "studying the last days." He employed dime-store paint and what appears to be Magic Marker on plywood to render a vision of heaven. The piece is odd, but oddly compelling. The man even more so. Having preached for decades, he realized that by Monday his congregation couldn't remember Sunday's sermon. In 1976, while he was repairing a bike, a smudge of white paint on his finger developed a face and commanded him, "Paint sacred art!" Finster did just that, taking junk (as he puts it, "I took the pieces you threw away") to create art in his Paradise Garden, some 80 miles north of Atlanta.
But my appreciation of his Christ-like vision for saving the discarded was only part of the reason I attended the forum. I was also intrigued by how Manhattan sophisticates would receive him. The gatekeepers of contemporary culture certainly haven't always comprehended him. In a 1990 Smithsonian collection, one of his paintings presented an evangelistic message beginning with the words, "He That Believeth Not Shall Be Damned," and continuing by proclaiming (in capitalized words) salvation in Jesus Christ. The museum placed a caption nearby: "The historical, popular, and biblical subjects of Finster's portraits embody ...
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