On my bucket list for several years was a visit to the visionary art environment known as Pasaquan. I can trace my interest to a conversation I had with an acquaintance on the board of the Georgia Humanities Council; she had participated in a group tour of the site and could not stop raving about the experience.
Just last month, I took the plunge and spent the weekend in Columbus, now the second largest city by population in Georgia, which I planned to use as a launching pad for the daytrip to Pasaquan.
The city of Columbus has many cultural attractions, and I will be covering in my column two of them in the coming weeks; but Pasaquan is in a league of its own. It is also very much off the beaten path. Located on a narrow county road about 35 miles southeast of the city, the 7-acre site encompasses six buildings connected by concrete walls.
The brainchild of the eccentric Eddie Owens Martin, the complex is nothing short of astounding. All the exterior and interior surfaces of the property are decorated with Martin's figurative images and abstract designs inspired by Egyptian, Mayan, Chinese, African and Indian art.
What could have possessed the son of Georgia sharecroppers to spend 30 years creating such a fantastical place? What impelled him to expand the modest home he inherited from his mother into a spiritual center and theater, convert the well house into a pagoda and meditation space, and construct a dance circle of sand surrounded by an undulating concrete border and scores of totemic figures?
Martin ran away from home as a teenager, fleeing an abusive father and seeking a place where he might feel that he belonged. He never found that sanctuary in the outer world, so he made his own. Drifting during his early years from place to place, taking odd jobs here and there, Martin lived on the edge of mainstream society. One day, however, while recovering from a bout of pneumonia, he had a revelation. Appearing in a fever dream was a strange being who promised to teach him "man's lost rituals." Martin subsequently renamed himself St. EOM (an acronym for Eddie Owens Martin but pronounced like the yoga syllable "ohm") and devoted the remainder of his life to his own idiosyncratic spiritual quest.
While he was constructing Pasaquan as his own personal worship space and fortress, he earned a living as a fortune teller and "poor man's psychiatrist," entertaining clients in the exotic manmade environment he conceived and built. After his death in 1986, Pasaquan was almost totally abandoned; it took a multi-million-dollar renovation financed by the Kohler Foundation of Wisconsin to bring it back to life. In 2011, it opened to the public under the stewardship of Columbus State University.
"Bedazzlement" is perhaps the best word to describe my own reaction to the wonders of Pasaquan. I did not know which way to turn my eye or focus my phone camera.
There is no admission fee, but donations to support the ongoing renovation of the site are welcomed. Both my traveling companion Michael Budd and I purchased necklaces fashioned by CSU student interns from the wooden beards carved by St. EOM and combined with plastic beads that he purchased. I can definitely assert that we are not ready to don our "levitation suits" and become Pasaquoyans, but we wanted to make a contribution toward the survival of Martin's extraordinary life's work, his one-of-a-kind visionary art environment.
A recipient of the Governor's Award in the Humanities, Dr. Mack holds the rank of USC Distinguished Professor Emeritus. Of his nine books to date, four are focused on local cultural history: "Circling the Savannah," "Hidden History of Aiken County," "Hidden History of Augusta," and "100 Things to Do in Augusta, Georgia Before You Die."