Buena Vista, GA -- W. Ray Luce, Division Director and Deputy State Historic Preservation Officer for the Historic Preservation Division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, has announced that Pasaquan, the famous visionary art site located in Marion County, GA, has been nationally recognized as architecturally and historically significant and has been placed on the National Register of Historic Places.


The National Register of Historic Places is the Nation's official list of cultural resources worthy of preservation. Authorized under the National Historic Preservation Act of 1966, the National Register is part of a national program to coordinate and support public and private efforts to identify, evaluate, and protect our historic and archeological resources. Properties listed in the Register include districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects that are significant in American history, architecture, archeology, engineering, and culture. The National Register is administered by the National Park Service, which is part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.

Pasaquan is a nationally significant 20th-Century visionary art environment that was created by eccentric artist Eddie Owens Martin, who signed his artwork, St. EOM. Martin was born in Marion County, Georgia, in 1908. He died at Pasaquan in 1986. Pasaquan is located approximately 5,5 miles west-northwest of Buena Vista, the Marion County seat of government.

The son of a local farm family, Martin left Marion County, Georgia, as a young teenager and moved to New York City, where he lived until the mid-1950s. Martin returned to Buena Vista around 1956, where he lived on four acres of land that he had inherited from his mother, Lydia Story Martin. In the late 1950s, he began transforming the family farmhouse and outbuildings into a work of visionary art that today is recognized internationally by critics as a unique artistic masterpiece.

Pasaquan consists of a series of vividly painted concrete walls and buildings that portray the artist' vision of the future. Pasaquan is a prime example of 20th-Century visionary art in America. Visionary art is defined by an individual's attempt to transcend a portrayal of the physical world and to render a vision or awareness of a world that is seen and understood only by the artist. Pasquan is Martin's effort to express the connection he saw between the earthly environment and the spiritual creator.

Pasaquan is open for visits on the first Saturday of each month, April through November. For more information and directions, go to http://www.pasaquan.com.