LaVilla: The Whetstonian’s Last Days?

Wayne explains that he’s leading a tour up to an Outsider Art landscape called Pasaquan in about a week. Pasaquan’s the bizarre creation of folk artist Eddie Owens Martin, who called himself St. EOM, outside Buena Vista, Georgia. Martin built the strange pre-Columbian-looking sculptures and UFO-shaped buildings at Pasaquan over a period of more than 30 years. The Whetstones, however, seem too worn out to fight for the Whetstonian’s preservation.

Dot says, “This is not how I envisioned living the last years of my life.”

We climb the stairs and wander through the second-story apartments, then emerge onto the roof and look out from atop the Whetstonian over the center of the city.

Back downstairs, I notice splotchy black-and-white renderings along a sherbet-green wall. There’s a headboard lying against it, but there’s enough of the imagery visible for Dot to point to it and say, “Oh! That mural! That tells the story of Walter’s life.”