PREVIEW
“Howard Finster: Visions of Coca-Cola”
Opens May 23. Through May 2015 in the Pop Culture Gallery, World of Coca-Cola. Attraction hours vary. $16; ages 65 and up, $14; ages 3-12, $12. 121 Baker St. N.W., Atlanta. 404-676-5151, www.worldofcoca-cola.com.
Finster Fest 2014
11 a.m.-5 p.m. May 31, 1-5 p.m. June 1 in Dowdy Park in downtown Summerville. Free. Man of Vision Concert (featuring Shenandoah, Randall Bramblett Band, the Whiskey Gentry and Travis Denning Band), 5 p.m.-midnight May 31 on East Washington Street in downtown Summerville. $10 general admission; $50 VIP tickets. 706-808-0800, www.finsterfest.com.
FINSTER ON COKE
The Summerville folk artist scribbled this singular tribute on the side of one of his 3-D Coca-Cola bottles:
“All across the world I find Coca-Cola except in one place. In a vision I went to Planet Hell one night and there was not one Coca-Cola there. … Man if you like Coke as good as I do you better stay out of Hell. Robert Woodruff never will send Coke to Hell. Stay out.”
FINSTER ON COKE
The Summerville folk artist scribbled this singular tribute on the side of one of his 3-D Coca-Cola bottles:
“All across the world I find Coca-Cola except in one place. In a vision I went to Planet Hell one night and there was not one Coca-Cola there. … Man if you like Coke as good as I do you better stay out of Hell. Robert Woodruff never will send Coke to Hell. Stay out.”
While the Rev. Howard Finster created nearly 47,000 numbered works of folk art scrawled with soul-saving messages, he also frequently was inspired by the iconography of American pop culture. He was especially smitten with the curvy contours of the Coca-Cola bottle.
Before he died in 2001, Finster painted countless wooden cutouts of Coke bottles and produced endless copies of prints and posters of his favorite soft drink, too.
Coca-Cola executives caught on to this and over the years provided the Summerville folk artist with a few giant plastic replicas of the bottle, which he covered with busts of presidents and other great Americans, angels and spaceships and hand-lettered messages about his affection for the heavenly life and John Pemberton's secret formula.
Two of those bottles, rising 8 and 13 feet tall, are highlights of a new exhibition opening this weekend at the World of Coca-Cola, "Howard Finster: Visions of Coca-Cola."
The 13-foot-tall bottle, which once greeted visitors to Paradise Garden, Finster's northwest Georgia art environment, is now in the collection of Thomas E. Scanlin of Dahlonega and rarely has been shown in recent years. The smaller one was commissioned by the Coca-Cola Co. as part of "The Coca-Cola Salute to Folk Art," a global art project on view during the 1996 Olympic Games.
Here are some other highlights of the yearlong exhibit, opening as part of the downtown attraction’s seventh anniversary festivities:
- "Howard Finster's Lifetime Wore Out Art Supplys," an assemblage he created from worn-out pencils, pens, markers, glue, pieces of chalk, rulers and other tools of his folk art trade.
- A 45 rpm record that Finster, whom Scanlin has called "one of the original recyclers," used as an artists' palette.
- A stool that Finster used in his art studio on the edge of Paradise Garden in Summerville.
Scanlin recalled that Finster placed a cup of paint on the stool at the end of a marathon painting session one day before going to sleep. When it stuck, Finster told himself he’d chip it off later, but then another sticky paint cup joined it. “It seemed the stool really wanted to be a palette instead,” the jeweler said.
Interest in Finster is at an all-time high since his death because of the ongoing revival of Paradise Garden, which was purchased by Chattooga County in 2012 in hopes of boosting tourism to one of Georgia’s poorest counties.
For Atlantans ready for a road trip, the Paradise Garden Foundation, the nonprofit that operates and is restoring the folk art environment, will host Finster Fest in Summerville's Dowdy Park, May 31-June 1. Featuring 50 artists and craftspeople as well as food vendors, the fest also includes a Man of Vision Concert headlined by Shenandoah, the Alabama country music band, on May 31.
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