Most Mondays since early April, when Paradise Garden, an hour and half northwest of Atlanta, closes to visitors, a small team pulls on gloves, picks up soft brushes, and gets to work, inch by careful inch, on restoration of the Mosaic Garden, part of an art environment outsider art legend Howard Finster spent decades building.
The Mosaic Garden is the original entrance to the four-acre site Finster built, beginning in 1970. He considered the project a commission from God and a memorial to the inventors and creators overlooked by history. He built its walls, pathways, and towers from concrete embedded with tools, bottles, shards of glass, pottery, mirrors and more, accumulating over decades into what many consider his greatest artistic work.
A recent assessment confirmed the Mosaic Garden is in fragile condition, with cracking, detachment of materials and structural instability throughout. Lichen, moss and mineral-pulling buildup cover almost 80% of its surface, accelerating deterioration.
Doing something — responsibly
The team behind the restoration work, the Paradise Garden Foundation, relies on a method developed by Elisabetta Perfetti, one of America’s leading conservators, who is known for maintaining the Watts Towers in Los Angeles. The Paradise Garden Foundation connected with Perfetti through the Artist Built Environment Network, which links sites with shared preservation challenges.
“The method Elisabetta shared for cleaning the Mosaic Garden is intentionally gentle,” said Davia Weatherill, the foundation’s executive director. “It allows us to remove harmful biological growth without introducing chemicals or techniques that could damage the surface. That balance — doing something, but doing it responsibly — is exactly what we need right now. We’re not trying to make it new. We’re trying to make sure it survives.”
Perfetti will be on-site at the garden’s Pennville location in May for nearly two weeks, leading restoration of the Stairway to Heaven mural, a project partially funded through a Georgia Council for the Arts Cultural Facilities grant. While she is there, Weatherill plans to seek Perfetti’s guidance on next steps for the Mosaic Garden, as the foundation continues to fundraise for a full conservation effort.
What the work looks like
Operations Manager and Curatorial Archivist Mary Shewan and Operations Coordinator Donnie Davis lead the hands-on work. They clean section by section, documenting before-and-after photographs as they go. The process is slow by design. Finster built with found objects, glass, pottery, shells and concrete, materials that age differently from one another, requiring constant attention and restraint.
“You can’t rush something like this,” Weatherill said. “If we want Paradise Garden to last, we have to do it the right way.”
The reward, so far, has been revelation. As moss and dirt disappear, details Finster embedded in the mosaics decades ago reappear — colors, objects, faces, names obscured for years.
“I noticed an image and a name in the mosaics the other day that I had never seen before,” Weatherill said. “That’s part of what makes this place so powerful. There are layers of meaning everywhere.”
Read More:
• Finster Fest 2023 in photos
• Joyful wooden creations from the late great Howard Finster
A garden built to last
The foundation’s goal is to complete this initial cleaning phase by winter. Full conservation, led by professional conservators, will follow as funding allows.
“Every inch of this place holds something Howard left behind,” Weatherill said. “Our job is to make sure it’s still here for the next person to discover.” The public can support the Paradise Garden restoration by visiting its Summerville, Georgia, site or by donating through the foundation’s website. The foundation also recently launched Living Pathway, a brick campaign that allows supporters to inscribe a message in a new, accessible pathway at the site.
