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If you build it, they will come
New VisionTV/Markham Street Films series visits the amazing “shrines” created by eccentric
visionaries all over North America |
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Shrines and Homemade Holy Places : Episode Synopses |
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| Episode 1 – Highways to Heaven |
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Margaret's Grocery - Along Highway 61 in Vicksburg, Mississippi, travelers are quick to spot an old school bus that has been converted into a church on wheels: just one feature of a roadside treasure called Margaret's Grocery Store. Margaret Dennis, 90, has been running her own grocery store for the last 60 years. She and her third husband, the Reverend H.D. Dennis, have transformed the store, creating a non-denominational oasis that preaches tolerance and love. “I thank God for everybody in this world,” she says. “We all need each other.” People come from all over the world to experience Margaret's Grocery – and they seldom leave empty-handed. |
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The Forevertron - Dr. Evermor is not your average sculptor. He used to be Tom Every, one of the most successful scrap dealers in the U.S. Midwest. His “studio” is a massive plot of land where he creates experimental and unusual devices made from industrial scrap. Clusters of metal phoenix birds perch next to massive beetles and a variety of other bug-like sculptures. These creatures are not randomly placed: they surround a central construct called the “Forevertron,” a fantastic Jules Verne-like device that – once complete – will “launch Dr. Evermor into the heavens on a magnetic force beam.” |
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| Episode 2 – Plaster, Pizza and Crosses |
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Desert Christ Park - In 1950, retired aircraft worker Antone Martin dreamed of finding a place to erect the three-ton statue of Christ he had created. The Grand Canyon turned him down, but an offer came from a “desert parson” in the tiny Southern California village of Yucca Valley. Over the next 10 years, Martin completed 50 larger-than-life figures, including tableaux from the Bible. His creations are made of steel-reinforced concrete, hand-finished with a mixture of white paint and plaster. Despite neglect and lawsuits, Desert Christ Park has survived – a testament to Martin's vision, and to a small handful of people determined to preserve this miracle in the desert. |
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Miracle Cross Garden - William Carlton Rice's Miracle Cross Garden, in Prattville, Alabama can be unnerving to some. It features crosses of every shape and size, along with signs that warn of damnation. When Alabama songwriter Karen Pell saw the haunted warning messages, her first thought was: “Maybe I shouldn't stay.” But she came back, and eventually wrote “Hell is Hot,” a song inspired by Rice's creation. A roadside curiosity to some, a place of inspiration to others, the Miracle Cross Garden has evoked a wide range of reactions; one local resident went all the way to the Alabama Supreme Court to try to have the site dismantled. Despite the opposition, Rice carried on building his garden, leaving a legacy of devotion and faith. |
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Silvio's Pizzeria - “I started originally as an Italian bakery making bread and pizza. But my dream was always to give the people much more … So I began to make monuments.” So says Silvio Luigi Barille, owner of the Redford American Bakery and Italian-American Artistic Historical Museum in the Detroit suburb of Redford. For 30 years, Silvio has been erecting concrete monuments in the courtyard of his bakery, and dozens more in his backyard, just across the alley. His works deal with subjects ranging from the immigrant experience to the pain of divorce. Today, Silvio's museum is a forum for his beliefs and philosophy, and a gathering place for friends old and new. |
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| Episode 3 – How Does Your Garden Grow? |
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Paradise Gardens - Howard Finster began preaching at age 13 and continued spreading the word until his death at 84. But that wasn't enough. In 1961, he drained and reclaimed two-plus acres of swampland in Pennville, Georgia and began collecting cast-off materials. From Finster's vision came Paradise Gardens: mosaic pathways, a “mirror house,” sculptures of inventions and machines, and the “World's Folk Art Church” – the chapel of Paradise Gardens. As legend has it, God called on Finster to “paint sacred art,” and he began blending images of Christ, Elvis and other pop culture icons. One of his 48,000 paintings appeared on the cover of a Talking Heads album in 1985, introducing Finster to a whole new audience. Once almost in ruins, the Garden is today making a comeback, “It's comin' alive now,” says daughter Beverly Finster. “I can feel it.” |
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The Tinkls – In the countryside just beyond the Toronto city limits is a homestead like no other, a place of love and beauty shared by two artists: Judith and Viktor Tinkl. Judith is a quilter and master gardener, Viktor is a sculptor and self-described “amateur architect.” They began their life of artistic and personal collaboration more than 40 years ago, in a one-room schoolhouse with no running water. Over the four decades, their home has become a reflection of their love for one another and their devotion to creating art. From the sprawling gardens to the fantastic array of whimsical sculptures, every inch of the property is an expression of their life together. |
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| Episode 4 – New Worlds in the Country and Inner City |
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Prairie Moon Sculpture Garden – The Prairie Moon Dance Hall, just outside of Cochrane, Wisconsin, opened in 1927, and the rafters rang with laughter and music until 1952. Herman Rusch, a retired farmer, then transformed the Prairie Moon into a museum to display his collection of curiosities, including oddly shaped pieces of wood, taxidermy and old machinery. Rusch also posted his “Ten Commandments” for living a long and joyful life, such as: “Try and create some hobby. As doing nothing causes boredom.” Following his own advice, Rusch began to decorate the grounds with concrete and stone planters, self portraits, snakes, bears, towers and his masterpiece: a 260-foot-long fence of chiseled white rocks, red bricks, and arches made from old iron wheels. Since his death, the Prairie Moon has again become an anchor for the community, bringing together local amateur historians, a judge and a pair of Wisconsin Dairy farmers. |
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The Heidelberg Project - “Imagine driving in the heart of an inner-city community, and all of a sudden you make a right turn and the street just explodes with colour. It's like this whole street comes alive … in the middle of this chaos.” So says Janine Whitfield, executive director of Detroit's Heidelberg Project. The Motor City fell on hard times after the civil insurrection of 1967, and a massive exodus left buildings and streets empty. One of the most exciting and unconventional efforts to turn the tide of urban decay has taken place in the dilapidated neighborhood of Heidelberg Street. Tyree Guyton is the creator and the founder of the Heidelberg Project, a renowned “outdoor art environment” that he began constructing in 1986. With a “polka dot house” as an anchor, the Heidelberg Project features art installations created by Tyree and members of the community. Despite city-ordered demolitions in 1991 and 1999, the project has continued to flourish, engaging children from both the inner city and the suburbs, and proving that pride is still possible on the streets of Detroit. |
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| Episode 5 – Men on Their Own Trying to Save the World |
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Salvation Mountain - For 20 years, Leonard Knight has been communicating with his creator, through a creation of his own: Salvation Mountain, situated deep in the bowels of the Mojave Desert. After being saved, Leonard wanted to spread the word in a big way. So he coated a massive desert ridge with adobe and molded it to deliver his message. With intensity and love, 100,000-plus gallons of donated paint and a monthly $298 social security cheque, Leonard has created an ever-evolving platform to deliver his message in the scorching heat of the desert. As one of Leonard's trusted friends and helpers says: “Every time I come back to Salvation Mountain, something has changed, because Leonard is constantly, constantly working on things and never takes a day off. I don't know how one man can be so inspired so constantly for so long. He's truly amazing.” |
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Screaming Heads - Burk's Falls, Ont. seems like a typical northern Canadian town until you turn a corner and meet Peter Camani, a high school art teacher and sculptor who has been creating mystery and magic since he came here seeking solitude in 1981. Camani has spent more than two decades managing the design and construction of concrete forms spread over several acres of land. Some of his “screaming head” sculptures reach 22 feet in height and weigh close to 30 tons. “I think that most people, whether they're religious or not, feel something here,” Cameo Bertrand says. “There's just a feeling of peace and calm that kind of comes over anybody as soon as they come through the gate.” |
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| Episode 6 – Concrete Visionaries |
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Wisconsin Concrete Park - It's hard to believe that just one man built this Wisconsin sculpture garden. Fred Smith had no formal schooling, working in lumber camps for almost 50 years. In 1948, at the age of 62, he began to build monuments to the things that mattered to him. As one area resident noted: “It was like … instead of writing his autobiography he sculpted it.” His sculptures honoured the European immigrants who had settled in Wisconsin: lumberjacks, “stump farmers,” plowmen and others. After Smith suffered a crippling stroke in 1964, the future of the Wisconsin Concrete Park was uncertain, until The Kohler Foundation (yes, the bathroom fixture company) committed to restoring and preserving the site. Says Ruth Kohler, director of the Foundation: “These are not simply oddities … they are important works of art.” |
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Ave Maria Grotto - At the Saint Bernard Abbey in the Appalachian foothills of Alabama sits the Ave Maria Grotto. Here, one tiny, frail Benedictine monk crafted 125 miniature reproductions of famous historic buildings and shrines. These masterpieces of stone and concrete are the life's work of Brother Joseph Zoettl, who came to the abbey in 1892 at age 14. Once he was given a blessing to pursue his talents, there was no holding him back. Says one of the Brothers at the Abbey: “It's a place where I think that one can see in the concrete, literally, someone's response and reaction to God.” Brother Joseph built his last miniature, the Lourdes Shrine, in 1958 at the age of 80. He died in 1961 and was buried in the abbey cemetery, not far from the site that tens of thousands of people still visit annually, to be awed and inspired by his work. |
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| Episode 7 – Louisiana Hot Sauce – Bayous, Blues and Basketball |
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Voodoo Temple - New Orleans, the place where Voodoo was first introduced to America, is home to Priestess Miriam Shumani. With business partner Allen Villeneuve, she runs the VooDoo Spiritual Temple, which “helps people with their small problems or disappointments.” A draw for both tourists and cultural anthropologists, the temple is a place for learning and healing. Scattered throughout are altars for expressing and invoking the loas , the spirit deities of the religion. Among the many to come for a reading over the years is Dawn Yellowhorn, who today designs voodoo dolls that mingle First Nations and Haitian traditions. |
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Angels on the Bayou - Along the shore of the Bayou Petite Cayoux, a reclusive bricklayer named Kenny Hill spent a dozen years building more than 100 statues – and then just walked away. His Cajun neighbors didn't know what to make of him, or his garden. At the centre of this creation is a 50-foot brick and concrete tower, encrusted with icons of American history, from the opening of the old west to the flag raising at Iwo Jima, as well as more spiritual images. Using concrete, chicken wire, steel rods and cast-off house paint, Kenny filled the garden with scenes of people suffering and receiving comfort from angels. His neighbors, mostly shrimp fishermen, pitched in when he needed a hand. A private man who shunned publicity, Kenny can be found today only in the mysterious self-portraits that dot his sculpture garden. |
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Algiers Point - Charles Gillam is a Louisiana-born, self-taught folk artist who has created a place where art, the blues, black history and basketball all come together on one street corner. He collects Mississippi “spirit wood” to build his shrine, which lies over the Mississippi River from New Orleans, in Algiers Point. His creation is a monument to black history, but also a “folk art zone,” an educational art Mecca for youngsters. While Gillam's carvings of legendary blues artists are on display in House of Blues nightclubs all over the U.S., he is more proud of what his art does for the neighbourhood and for the local kids. As one neighbour says: “When they leave, their faces are so bright and just so happy … like they have accomplished the most important thing in their life.” |
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| Episode 8 – There Goes the Neighbourhood |
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Woodcakes - On Clinton Street, in Toronto, you'll find Albino Carreira's “Woodcakes”: a house decorated with thousands of small pieces of wood held together by Robertson screws – the same kind of screw that surgeons used to repair Albino's spine after a near-fatal accident on a construction site. Woodcakes is both Albino's homage to the creator of the screw that helped to fix his mangled body, and a form of therapy that helps him deal with chronic pain and anxiety. Albino's home is also adorned with plastic bugs, sliced-up pool cues and other oddities – and his creation has spilled over to his van, which is now festooned with thousands of plastic bugs. What does Albino's son, Steven, think about the house? “Do I enjoy living here? Honestly, I have no choice, so I've just learned to accept it.” |
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Watts Towers - The Watts Towers in Los Angeles are among the most revered folk art shrines in the world – but they have been in constant peril for more than 50 years. A tiny lot is home to 17 dramatic sculptural forms – the tallest standing nearly 100 feet high – built of steel and mortar and covered with bits of ceramic tile, pottery, seashells and broken glass. The towers were built by one man: an Italian immigrant tradesman named Simon Rodia who began in 1921 and spent 30 years creating these fantastic structures. Rodia had no formal training in art, but possessed boundless passion, vision and dedication. Little is known about why he built the Towers or what they mean. But this episode of Shrines unearths some clues worthy of The Da Vinci Code . |
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| Episode 9 – Nek Chand |
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Nek Chand Gardens - One day 36 years ago, Nek Chand, a humble transport official in the north Indian city of Chandigarh, began to clear a little patch of jungle to make himself a small garden area. He set stones around the little clearing and before long had sculpted a few figures recycled from materials he found at hand. Gradually Nek Chand's creation developed and grew; before long it covered several acres and comprised of hundreds of sculptures set in a series of interlinking courtyards. Now over twenty five acres of several thousand sculptures set in large mosaic courtyards linked by walled paths and deep gorges, Nek Chand's creation also combines huge buildings with a series of interlinking waterfalls. The Rock Garden is now acknowledged as one of the modern wonders of the world. Over 5000 visitors each day, some 12 million people so far, walk around this vast creation - the greatest artistic achievement seen in India since the Taj Mahal. |
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