Atlanta’s Kyle “BlackCatTips” Brooks says he’s birds-of-a-feather with folk art’s father Finster

Brooks will speak at Paradise Garden during Finster Fest this weekend, where his exhibition, Birds of a Feather: Black Cat Tips in Paradise Garden, is on view through September 27

Atlanta-based artist Kyle “BlackCatTips” Brooks is preparing for his fourth year at Finster Fest. The all-things Howard Finster-related celebration takes place this weekend at the late folk artist’s old Summerville home, workshop and funky, found-object eden, Paradise Garden.

The Fest has grown since it started in 1992 as Howard Finster Day, becoming a kind of mecca for Southern folk artists and gathering crowds from across the country and metro Atlanta, including Brooks.

“I found out about [Finster] kind of late, and he passed away about the same time I started painting,” said Brooks, who’s known in Atlanta for his folksy, colorful street art, which often features fanciful animals, joyful colors and whimsical themes. His work, full of personality and bold outlines, echoes the spirit of Finster’s own paintings. “I never got to meet him, and I’d never been to Paradise Garden until about 10 years ago. But I was attracted to his creations and the humor to a lot of it and the approachability to it. It relates to people all over.”  

Finster’s distinctly homespun Americana style has that effect on people. The proof might be in Finster Fest itself. Running September 19 and September 20, this year’s Festival features 82 new and returning artists, plus 17 musical acts. The weekend-long event includes several presentations and speakers, including Brooks, who was an artist-in-residence at Paradise Garden for a week in May. He will give a gallery talk on Sunday at 1 p.m. about the bird-themed work he created during his residency, Birds of a Feather: Black Cat Tips in Paradise Garden, which will be on view in Paradise Garden’s visitors’ center through September 27.

“I was just inspired by birds in flight. Just like the amazing fish in the deep ocean, there’s any kind you can imagine,” said Brooks, who crafted a plethora of wooden bird cutouts as well as more standard avian paintings on panels of wood. “I’m like a feather on the tail of a bird, and these other folk artists are other feathers.”

Some of those other folksy feathers, err, artists, giving talks during Finster Fest include Lala Abaddon, a New York- and Texas-based creator demonstrating her artistic process of photographic weaving, and Mavis Stevens, another former Paradise Garden artist-in-residence, performing from her children’s book Last Chance Trailer Park.

“We have a lot of new ideas going on,” said Davia Weatherill, executive director of the Paradise Garden Foundation, the organization that stewards Finster’s 2.5-acre property.

New to this year is Finster’s America, an exhibit for America’s 250^th birthday featuring the self-taught artist’s own images of America, which he rendered with mesmerizing detail. “So we went through our archive, thinking about how do we celebrate this moment,” said Weatherill. “Marilyn Monroe, Elvis, Coca-Cola and Fords and Cadillacs — these were things that were iconic America to him.”

Born in rural Valley Head, Alabama, in 1916, Finster went on to become a Baptist preacher and (according to the man himself) a “master of 22 different trades” before building his Summerville property into a quirky roadside tribute to inventors called the Plant Farm Museum. Later, this self-proclaimed “man of visions” had a divine revelation that inspired him to produce art with no experience. His Plant Farm Museum, really a junkyard wonderland, slowly morphed into a religious shrine full of artwork proclaiming the word of God and an outdoor folk-art oasis made with found objects — now called Paradise Garden. The land is also home to Finster’s five-story World’s Folk Art Church, which he built without drawing a single blueprint. Oh, he was a character. The church was closed for 25 years but reopened last year after an extensive renovation.

Although Finster had no art world connections or official training,he would become one of America’s most widely known and prolific self-taught artists, producing nearly 47,000 individual pieces throughout his life. Before his death in 2001, he was a celebrity, not just in the art world but in pop culture and music as well. He was interviewed by Johnny Carson and made album covers for popular bands, including Talking Heads, whose ’85 album Little Creatures was a Finster painting named album cover of the year by Rolling Stone.

“He had an extraordinary ability to collapse the boundaries between folk art, fine art, popular culture and music,” said Weatherill. “And you start to understand Howard differently when you stand in Paradise Garden.”

Finster has become such a symbol of iconic American art that this year the Paradise Garden Foundation received $19,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts (NEA), the largest sum the nonprofit has ever received from the federal government. Those funds allowed the foundation to waive all fees for Finster Fest artists this year, pay the musical acts and curate the Finster’s America exhibit. With a $10 admission fee, the Festival also acts as the foundation’s largest fundraiser. The profits go back into the garden for preservation and programming. In the words of Weatherill, the Fest is “not just a fundraiser but an artist-raiser.” It’s all apropos for an artist whose first painting was of George Washington based on a $1 bill he dug out of his pocket.

“It’s hard not to be influenced by Finster. [His art] is simple but it’s very complex. It’s got multiple layers that you can kind of dive into. A lot of words in it you can read and think on,” said Brooks, who’s been busy with art projects in Atlanta while he prepares for the big Fest this weekend. “I try not to directly take from other artists, but it’s hard not to be inspired by this artist and his creations.”

Finster Fest returns to Howard Finster’s Paradise Garden (200 N. Lewis St. in Summerville) this weekend, September 19 and September 20, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. General admission is $10, with advance tickets available online here.

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Jeff Dingler is an Atlanta-based author and entertainer. A graduate of Skidmore College with an MFA in creative writing from Hollins University, he’s written for New York Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Tiny Love, Newsweek, WIRED, Salmagundi and Flash Fiction Magazine. More information at jeffdingler.org.