2000

In June of 2000, three months after my mother died.  I drove back to see my dad in southern Illinois with my kids in tow.  Cole was 13 and Leah was 5. My wife Julie stayed back in Washington to direct a Girl Scout Camp.  We took a side trip down to Atlanta with my dad to visit my nephew and his wife.  Now I had heard of Howard Finster before, because he had designed the album cover for The Talking Heads 'Little Creatures' 1985.  But, I didn't know much at all about American Outsider Art.

My nephew Scott told me that Howard Finster's Paradise Gardens was not that far out of the way when we were leaving to return to Illinois.   So, on the way back to my dad's place we took a little detour and stopped in at Paradise Gardens.

My dad waited in the car while the kids and I went up to check out the gardens.  It was something like $5 per person, maybe a discount for the kids.  Anyway, we were 5 cents shy of what we needed for the 3 of us to get in.  The lady running the show that day waited patiently while I ran back to the car and got 5 cents more from my dad.  Howard was not there that day, he was in the hospital having leg surgery. We explored the gardens though (it freaked 5 year old Leah out) and  afterwards looked at Howard's art in the little attached gift shop.  I didn't have enough money to buy anything but the place left an impression on me.  When I got back home out to Washington State I typed Howard Finster's name into the computer and it opened up the whole world of outsider art for me.  I was soon learning about Mose Tolliver and Jimmy Lee Sudduth and Myrtice West and John Henry Toney.  It was great, overwhelmingly awesome.  I wondered why I had never heard about all this wonderful American art before.  I studied film and theater in college and was in love with art, Picasso, Matisse, Van Gogh, O'Keefe, Pollock, all the European/American trained masters.  But this art blew me away. It was so American and I felt my soul attracted to it.  Somewhere deep inside I was moved and wanted to know more about this art and have it around me.  I wished I had discovered it years before so I could have gotten to know more of the artists and gone to Kentuck Fest when Howard and Mose and Jimmy Lee were regular fixtures.  But, I DID discover it, and I did get to meet Jimmy, Mose, Myrtice, Bernice Sims, Woodie Long, Eric Legge, Annie Tolliver, and many others.  It's changed my life and educated me. The art has humbled me and given me a purpose.  I will forever be grateful that I made that stop at Paradise Gardens and was 5 cents short on the entry fee.     dave