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28 January 2008
Creatures of love
The painter and reverend Howard Finster died a few years ago, an old man. Maybe you've seen his work on a Talking Heads or REM album cover; towards the end of his life, Finster became the darling of hip people.
Though Finster thought the "reverend" part far more important than the "painter" part, I can't find his religious views even wrong-but-interesting. Were I a sociologist, then sure, I'd think his red-clay-crossroads Christianity academically fascinating. He believed -- very sincerely -- some seriously whacked-out shit. But lots of people do that, and are boring nonetheless.
Finster's sincere-but-whacked-out beliefs, by contrast, fuelled a life of naive but exuberant artistic output. I use "naive" in an utterly non-judgemental sense. Finster was absolutely innocent of formal training. He was also an absolute genius. I'm not sure what it means when we say an artist was "inspired", but whatever inspiration might mean, Finster had it.
Look around. Find some images of things Finster painted, and enjoy them. It's not hard. You'll be happy you did.
Posted by Mrs Tilton at 02:23 AM | Permalink
Comments
Okay, here's a funny thing about Finster--hinted at, of course, by Roger Manley and Co. but they were too polite to nail it down--if you substitute "television" for "vision" in his work you have unlocked the lock on the door to the safe that contains the golden goblet of coca-cola.
Try it. If Howard sez: "I had me a vision last night of oil fields burning and smoking and an eye dropping from Heaven that burns in the sands of the Holy Land and model-T Fords taking people around in America I had me that vision." You should translate it as: Howard was watching a Gulf War documentary on the television last night.
Have you ever wondered why/how all that very specific stuff about Johnny Carson/David Letterman/Pamela Anderson/weird animals/WWII/etc. ended up in the middle of his "visions" on the paintings? Or why Manley and Co. got him to put Howard's head in a TV screen for the cover of their book?
Anyway, look up one of this "visions" and just substitute "television" and you'll see that while it might have seemed like Howard was talking about, oh, the fish and the loaves, nope he's talking about a Bass Masters show. In person, it was even worse, since about the half the time Howard would start talking he was talking back to the TV while looking at the person in front of him.
Posted by: numbertwopencil at 19 Feb 2008 08:06:55
