paradise garden

Historic High Country Georgia is an oddity to say the least.

The enchanted roots of the Cherokee Indians are there, but you have to do a lot of squinting and ignoring of the modern day White Man to see it.  The confusing combination of blue collar factories, farmland, faintly charming downtowns, one room churches, Civil War battlegrounds, mountain views, and ancient burial grounds has always intrigued me.  I like peeling away the layers of eras, because each day trip we take makes for new discoveries.  

This part of the state is not pretentious or touristy, although it could be if it wanted.  I'm so glad it's not.  For every one big main road there is, there are hundreds of tiny unpaved roads to explore.  He swears that one day I'll steer us down the wrong road and suddenly my love affair with Appalachia will end.  Until then, I'll continue to find all of the chipped paint, broken glass, thick dialect, folk art, mildly incoherent rhetoric, wind chimes, church bells, ghost stories, corvette graveyards, porch couches, stray dogs, and locals quite charming.

* * *

I have a hard time describing Howard Finster.  My little adjectives minimize his work and vision.  

It's easy to stand in the High Museum (silk scarf, skirt, ballet flats) with big beautiful white walls swallowing his work, and think up all kinds of patronizing accolades for the outsider's art.  Outsider art is synonymous with endearingly insane after all.  In fact, I even admit to hurrying the girls along to the next collection if ever I saw them getting too hung up on making sense of the out-of-context, bubble gum pink, hand-painted messages.  Frankly, it creeped me out to see them so to drawn to the inviting colors and shapes and indecipherable species of animals... as if they had been offered Kool Aid when I wasn't looking.  

Paradise Garden, the birthplace of Finster's creations, is nestled in a small town in High Country.  It all made so much more sense as I stood in the garden today (jacket, jeans, muddy boots).  The modest home and studio he worked in paled in scale to the elaborate paths leading in and around the fountains, small chapels, tree houses, and other structures he'd built up on his property over the years.  We walked on sidewalks that had moldy doll heads and soda bottles embedded inside of them, brushed our heads on the dangling garlands that hung from trees and gutters, sat on an exposed church pew that faced (what I hope was) an empty casket at a fake funeral, and spent over half an hour in a mirror lined tree house that couldn't decide if it was more disco or dog house.  We stared at the same sets of words that made me uncomfortable in the museum, but this time I let the girls study them.  I let them ask me the inevitable questions, and I answered them as best I could.  We had the whole place to ourselves, and I didn't get the feeling that it was an especially slow day.

As the sun began to set, we took turns using the restroom before our long drive home.  

Each of us took note of his scrawled quote on the wall next to the toilet, "My work is scrubby.  It's bad, nasty art.  But you don't have to be a perfect artist to work in art."  

Toiletside inspiration is new to me, but it makes sense.  Like Appalachian Georgia and the rest of High Country, the most unsuspecting places have been known to motivate and excite.