He painted in free-form styles, using everything from wind and rain to blowtorches to work his canvases. He also used, famously, naked women. He generally worked with a single color; can you guess which?

International Klein Blue

A few miles later, predictably, we saw the old flag, the one that flew above the state house from 1956 to 2001. It looks like this:

The flag was controversial from the start. Many state groups lobbied for the Georgia legislature to keep the old design, a simple but attractive flag that had flown between 1920 and 1956:

Some even asked for the return of the flag flown until 1879:

The little fellow in the middle represents the defense of the constitution. But back to the ’56 flag. Instituted and voted in as part of a package of bills aimed at fighting federal attempts to integrate Georgia schools, and specifically targeting the effects of the Brown vs. Board of Education decision that same year, it incorporated into it’s design a carbon copy of the CSA flag – the Confederate States of America. For over a century, the flag represented to many treason, racial hatred, institutionalized slavery, and a war that killed more Americans than every other international fracas we’ve engaged in. A war capable of slaughtering more than 50,000 men in a single battle. For others, it represented nebulous notions of “culture,” “tradition,” and “history, not hate.”

The flag was a bitter point of contention for decades. When the Olympic Games came to Atlanta in 1996, many participant countries and American business owners and athletes complained about having to play under such a flag. At the time, Democratic Governor Zell Miller attempted to make a change but got soundly defeated in the legislature. It would not be until 2001, when another Democratic Governor occupied the mansion (Roy Barnes) that the flag finally got changed. And boy did it ever, to this monstrosity:

Several survey tagged this flag as the worst in the country, in terms of design and aesthetic appeal. It also gets bad marks for compromise, with a strange an nowhere-near appeasing inclusion of the ’56 flag under the “Georgia’s History” banner. Many Georgians were furious, and the new Governor, Republican Sonny Perdue, was elected in part due to a campaign promise to put the flag issue up for referendum; he would allow Georgians to to vote on which flag they wanted.

Of course, when Sonny won, he was put in a bit of a pickle; follow through on his campaign promise and reinstate a symbol of racism, shameful history and hatred on top of the state house, or keep the flag the way it was and be considered a liar, coward and same-old politician?

In the end, Perdue pulled off a pretty neat trick. He did hold the referendum, but the voters were given but two choices; the current flag, seen at the top of this post, or the hideous flag, seen at the bottom. Again, indignation and relief rose in equal manner.

As for now, the issue is settled. However, it’s interesting and revealing to note how much design can mean, even when (or especially when) divorced from aesthetic consideration. It’s not just furniture, color and clothes.

The Bloom Lamp

The Pop Sofa

Finster was a deeply religious man convinced in a vision from the lord that he should paint. He created thousands of folk art pieces over his life, including his home, Paradise Gardens, which became an ever-changing permanent exhibit of carving, painting, paint-penning, chalk-drawing, sculpture, agriculture, and architecture. When he died the place fell into disrepair, but it has since been put under the protection of the state, and volunteers are working now to restore it to it’s former glory.

Finster’s un-precious, un-precocious, un-pretentious works of art are the mad, wonderful scatterings of a brilliantly fractured mind and talent. They’re so much fun, they look so good, they’re so honest and American.  See them in the Smithsonian or in Northwest Georgia; they’re folk art at it’s purest and least complicated.

We see it again, worn but none the worse, on the cover of her most recent album, 2004′s excellent Van Lear Rose:

She made the album with Jack White (of the White Stripes), one of the rare performers allowed to play the guitar himself, which he did in their video for “Miss Being Mrs.,” the penultimate track on Van Lear Rose.