The Story Map #1234

Artistic print of the United States signed by it’s original creator.

The Reverend Howard Finster (born 1916) began preaching in his native state of Alabama at age 16. He began writing poetry and prose as a way to help his congregation remember the morals of his sermons, which they sometimes seemed to forget after only a few minutes (according to the minister). This creative path of religious inspiration led Howard to begin creation of his largest piece, the environmental sculpture known as Paradise Garden, in 1976. Finster would ultimately create over 45,000 pieces of sacred art, many of which can still be seen in the public park encompassing the grounds of his former home and workshop. His artistic appeal extends beyond the religious, as he also created album cover art for R.E.M., the Talking Heads, but his focus was always on the spiritual. He said of the Talking Heads album, “I think there’s twenty-six 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 twenty-six million verses I got out into the world in two and a half months!”

This print is of one of his early works, Story Map #1234, originally created in 1976 at Paradise Gardens and painted on plywood. It was produced by the Coca-Cola Company in conjunction with a celebration of the 1996 Olympic Games, held in Atlanta. This abstract look at the United States, surrounding by ships of all shapes and sizes, tells the story of our country as one connected entity comprised of many different components, each with their own unique character. The signature of the artist, responsible for introducing millions to his form of outsider art, can be found in the lower right.