1 00:00:03,269 --> 00:00:07,807 GUEST: I bought it in Washington, D.C., in 1985. 2 00:00:07,807 --> 00:00:12,545 There was a gallery near where I lived, and I just, I loved it. 3 00:00:12,545 --> 00:00:13,780 I couldn't afford it with the money that I had in the bank. 4 00:00:13,780 --> 00:00:17,183 I was a cook. 5 00:00:17,183 --> 00:00:21,221 And, um, so I talk to her about it and she says, "Well, I can sell it to you on installment." 6 00:00:21,221 --> 00:00:22,555 So I was, like, "Okay." 7 00:00:22,555 --> 00:00:23,790 APPRAISER: And, and how much was it? 8 00:00:23,790 --> 00:00:26,259 GUEST: I paid $1,100 for it. 9 00:00:26,259 --> 00:00:28,028 APPRAISER: In 1985, which was a lot of money. 10 00:00:28,028 --> 00:00:29,029 GUEST: A lot of money. 11 00:00:29,029 --> 00:00:29,929 APPRAISER: Yeah. 12 00:00:29,929 --> 00:00:31,064 Yeah. 13 00:00:31,064 --> 00:00:33,500 GUEST: For me. 14 00:00:33,500 --> 00:00:38,705 The thing is, he also did the cover of Talking Heads album called "Little Creatures." 15 00:00:38,705 --> 00:00:42,776 And I paid my first payment, and then the next week, that album came out. 16 00:00:42,776 --> 00:00:44,444 And I was, like... 17 00:00:44,444 --> 00:00:45,678 APPRAISER: And, and who are we talking about here? 18 00:00:45,678 --> 00:00:46,780 GUEST: Howard Finster. 19 00:00:46,780 --> 00:00:47,747 APPRAISER: Howard Finster, okay. 20 00:00:47,747 --> 00:00:49,282 GUEST: That's right. 21 00:00:49,282 --> 00:00:51,151 APPRAISER: Finster was a, a visionary artist. 22 00:00:51,151 --> 00:00:53,353 Uh, and he was out there. 23 00:00:53,353 --> 00:00:54,187 And you can look at this and say, "Wow!" 24 00:00:54,187 --> 00:00:55,455 GUEST: Yeah. 25 00:00:55,455 --> 00:00:56,222 APPRAISER: He was born in 1916. 26 00:00:56,222 --> 00:00:57,824 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 27 00:00:57,824 --> 00:01:01,928 APPRAISER: And, uh, he was one of 13 children. 28 00:01:01,928 --> 00:01:05,832 And he, he declared that he had his first vision when he was three years old. 29 00:01:05,832 --> 00:01:08,301 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 30 00:01:08,301 --> 00:01:11,971 APPRAISER: His sister, who was deceased, visited him in a dream and said, "You, Howard, you 31 00:01:11,971 --> 00:01:14,074 will be a man of visions." 32 00:01:14,074 --> 00:01:16,209 He became an evangelical preacher. 33 00:01:16,209 --> 00:01:17,844 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 34 00:01:17,844 --> 00:01:21,414 APPRAISER: But he was all along making art. 35 00:01:21,414 --> 00:01:25,051 He finally moved to near Summerville, Georgia... 36 00:01:25,051 --> 00:01:26,619 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 37 00:01:26,619 --> 00:01:30,190 APPRAISER:...and started the Paradise Garden. 38 00:01:30,190 --> 00:01:31,791 And the Paradise Garden still exists today. 39 00:01:31,791 --> 00:01:33,226 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 40 00:01:33,226 --> 00:01:35,261 APPRAISER: Uh, that you can go see. 41 00:01:35,261 --> 00:01:41,201 It's a, it's a, full of oddball buildings that incorporate Finster's art. 42 00:01:41,201 --> 00:01:44,904 R.E.M. and the Talking Heads discovered him and there was an article about him in "Atlanta" 43 00:01:44,904 --> 00:01:45,972 magazine. 44 00:01:45,972 --> 00:01:48,041 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 45 00:01:48,041 --> 00:01:51,244 APPRAISER: And people started picking up on this weird, quirky guy. 46 00:01:51,244 --> 00:01:53,179 So let's sort of delve into this. 47 00:01:53,179 --> 00:01:54,781 GUEST: (laughing) Okay. 48 00:01:54,781 --> 00:01:55,315 APPRAISER: And the first thing, it's made out of boards. 49 00:01:55,315 --> 00:01:56,583 GUEST: Oh, yeah. 50 00:01:56,583 --> 00:01:57,617 APPRAISER: There's some mirror. 51 00:01:57,617 --> 00:01:58,351 This is a piece of plexiglass. 52 00:01:58,351 --> 00:01:59,919 GUEST: Right. 53 00:01:59,919 --> 00:02:01,387 APPRAISER: And he's painted everywhere. 54 00:02:01,387 --> 00:02:02,889 He's covered every... 55 00:02:02,889 --> 00:02:04,991 GUEST: Everywhere. 56 00:02:04,991 --> 00:02:07,360 APPRAISER: ...complete surface, which is typical of the work that he did. 57 00:02:07,360 --> 00:02:10,663 Lots of verbiage, lots of action. 58 00:02:10,663 --> 00:02:15,401 And then you sort of delve into this, and you say, "Okay, here's the Tree of Life," 59 00:02:15,401 --> 00:02:19,139 and there are clouds in ascending from the Tree of Life. 60 00:02:19,139 --> 00:02:20,140 GUEST: Happy clouds. 61 00:02:20,140 --> 00:02:22,208 APPRAISER: Happy clouds. 62 00:02:22,208 --> 00:02:27,647 And then, of course, scattered throughout are keys to Finster's work. 63 00:02:27,647 --> 00:02:35,288 GUEST: So instead of just writing the number 3,524, he wrote the "3,000 and 524 works of 64 00:02:35,288 --> 00:02:37,891 art." 65 00:02:37,891 --> 00:02:41,528 APPRAISER: Yeah, and, and of course, Finster had received another vision that he was to 66 00:02:41,528 --> 00:02:45,198 make 5,000 works of art. 67 00:02:45,198 --> 00:02:47,667 And that's why he started numbering them. 68 00:02:47,667 --> 00:02:50,803 And he continued to work until he died in 2001. 69 00:02:50,803 --> 00:02:52,105 GUEST: Yeah. 70 00:02:52,105 --> 00:02:53,973 APPRAISER: So there, there... 71 00:02:53,973 --> 00:02:58,711 No one knows absolutely how many works of art Finster did. 72 00:02:58,711 --> 00:03:02,248 But it's probably in excess of 45,000 or 50,000 works of art. 73 00:03:02,248 --> 00:03:04,350 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 74 00:03:04,350 --> 00:03:07,120 APPRAISER: Which brings us around to value of this remarkable thing. 75 00:03:07,120 --> 00:03:08,721 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 76 00:03:08,721 --> 00:03:10,423 APPRAISER: What do you think it's worth today? 77 00:03:10,423 --> 00:03:15,495 GUEST: Not that long ago, a gallery owner in Atlanta told me it's worth maybe $3,000 78 00:03:15,495 --> 00:03:17,363 to $5,000 at auction. 79 00:03:17,363 --> 00:03:18,264 APPRAISER: Yeah. 80 00:03:18,264 --> 00:03:19,666 Okay. 81 00:03:19,666 --> 00:03:20,967 GUEST: That's all I knew then. 82 00:03:20,967 --> 00:03:24,370 APPRAISER: I, I, I would differ a little bit. 83 00:03:24,370 --> 00:03:28,074 Most of his work, his small-dimensional work, is either measured in the few hundreds... 84 00:03:28,074 --> 00:03:29,943 GUEST: Mm-hmm. 85 00:03:29,943 --> 00:03:33,446 APPRAISER:...to $1,500, $2,000. 86 00:03:33,446 --> 00:03:37,183 In the right outsider art auction, I think this would probably bring between $15,000 87 00:03:37,183 --> 00:03:38,184 and $25,000. 88 00:03:38,184 --> 00:03:39,219 GUEST: Really?! 89 00:03:39,219 --> 00:03:40,353 That's great! 90 00:03:40,353 --> 00:03:41,187 APPRAISER: Absolutely. 91 00:03:41,187 --> 00:03:42,222 Absolutely. 92 00:03:42,222 --> 00:03:43,189 GUEST: Great. 93 00:03:43,189 --> 00:03:44,791 Good for Howard. 94 00:03:44,791 --> 00:03:44,324 I knew it was very special when I saw it.