Detour Art

A curated guide to Artist-built Environments

region by region, coast-to-coast.

Dedicated to the sheer joy of outsider, folk, visionary, self-taught, vernacular art and environment discoveries found all along the back roads (and side streets).

creative finds … region by region

Artist-built Environments in the United States

Note: Things change, so check first before arriving. When visiting art environments, remember they are usually on private property, so please be respectful and don’t trespass.

“PECULIAR TRAVEL SUGGESTIONS ARE DANCING LESSONS FROM GOD.”

— Kurt Vonnegut

Road stories

Garden of Salvation - Kenny Hill

Kenny Hill is a bricklayer by trade. One day, for who knows what reason, he started working on a sculpture. It was a self-portrait, and he told a neighbor that if he liked it when it was done, he was going to make more. He must have liked it, because for the next twelve years, between bouts of earning a living, he toiled away on a small plot of land just off a bayou in Chauvin, Louisiana.

Working in concrete, he built life-size figures, telling his version of the story of salvation. There are angels holding horns, and angels with sand clocks, angels with swords, and angels playing harps, and then more angels after that. There's Christ on the cross, and the Gates of Heaven. There are lost souls, world-weary people, and there are self-portraits of Kenny, along the path at various stages. And, as you might expect, there are the Gates of Hell, as a reminder of the wrong path.

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Second-Coming House - Prophet Isaiah Robertson

Isaiah Henry Roberson was a middle-aged home builder from Canada via Jamaica when he had a vision that the world would end in 2014 near Niagara Falls. He began to transform his humble home into a multi-colored showplace of awe. It was a beacon to all to be saved. If you were lucky enough to meet him, you would find yourself and your car sanctified, guaranteeing a safe journey until the apocalypse. The multicolored cut-outs that adorn his home are as bright as he was warm.

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