In 2023, when D. Patton White and his company Beacon Dance performed at a Buckhead home during a private event for the Paradise Garden Foundation — the organization that operates and preserves artist Howard Finster’s 4-acre folk art environment in Summerville — they were astonished to see the hosts’ extensive, museum-quality collection of art by Finster and other artists.
Now they will have an opportunity to see even more of the visionary artist’s work when they develop a new movement piece in Paradise Garden, which is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
Courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
Courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
Finster began creating Paradise Garden behind his house in the early 1960s, according to the Smithsonian American Art Museum. Much of the building material he used was accumulated from his many trades, including his television and bicycle repair businesses.
Beacon will research and develop the new work on site in early August and perform it on Sept. 21, the first day of this year’s two-day Finster Fest.
For the 2023 Atlanta Patron Party, Beacon Dance performed a blend of social dance and modern and contemporary dance forms, set to music by the Talking Heads.
It was their way of paying tribute to Finster’s long history of collaboration with musicians: His artwork for the Talking Heads album “Little Creatures” was named Rolling Stone magazine’s album cover of the year in 1985.
The dancers’ costumes at the patron event evoked the photo of the band’s musicians on the album’s back cover.
Photo courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
Photo courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
Finster, who saw his art as a religious calling, said of the Talking Heads album: “I think there’s 26 religious verses on that first cover I done for them. They sold a million records in the first two-and-a-half months after it come out, so that’s 26 million verses I got out into the world in two-and-a-half months!”
Tina Cox, Paradise Garden’s executive director, says Beacon did their homework on Finster and Paradise Garden. “They research their creative subjects and really get it,” she said.
Cox invited Beacon back for the 2024 fundraiser, when they performed to original live music and donned makeup inspired by many of Finster’s paintings. “He painted very overt eyelashes on his faces, so we did the same thing with our makeup,” White said
Photo courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
Photo courtesy of Paradise Garden Foundation
He said the costumes for the Finster Fest performance in September will be “pedestrian clothing with a twist,” and the music will comprise two or three tracks by the Australian band Dead Can Dance.
At least one of the selections will have a contemplative, ritualistic feel to it. “Much of Finster’s work has that same ethereal feel,” White said. “He often used angel imagery and was inspired by the sacred and transformational.”
At Finster Fest, however, visitors will be focused on the environment itself and all the activities — booths overflowing with art, lots of food and, of course, music and other entertainment. The Beacon dancers will amplify the essence of Finster’s art right there in the garden he built.
In the process of creation, White said, he and the dancers will consider what it means to be a visionary and how Finster became the artist he became. It’s about diving into and giving yourself over to the creation of art, he added.
IF YOU GO
Finster Fest 2024
Sept. 21-22 at Paradise Garden. 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday. $10; children 12 and under, free. 200 N. Lewis St., Summerville. 706-808-0800, paradisegardenfoundation.org
Gillian Anne Renault is ArtsATL’s senior editor for music and dance and has been an ArtsATL contributor since 2012. She has covered dance for the Los Angeles Daily News, Herald Examiner and Ballet News and on radio stations such as KCRW, the NPR affiliate in Santa Monica, California. Many years ago, she was awarded an NEA fellowship to attend American Dance Festival’s Dance Criticism program.
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