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

“PECULIAR TRAVEL SUGGESTIONS ARE DANCING LESSONS FROM GOD.”— Kurt Vonnegut

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.

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.

Read More

Fox Point Art Yard - Mary Nohl

Mary Nohl’s lakeside cottage and yard are replete with sculptures, paintings, and decorative elements. Inspired by her life on the shore of Lake Michigan, Nohl used every imaginable material to construct a colorful and whimsical world. The yard features fifty-nine concrete sculptures, many figural and life-size. Inside the house, almost every surface is adorned; she hand made stained glass, painted her furniture and walls using carpet swatches as brushes, and displayed her paintings and ceramics.

Read More

Mrs. Pope's Museum - Laura (Forester) Pope

Laura Pope built a sculpture garden that surrounded her general store and house in a rural area near Ochlocknee, Georgia. It once included about 200 accomplished life-size cement figures of famous women and heroes of both World Wars, Martha Berry, Red Cross, Gold Star Mothers, and many others, including local school teachers.

Read More