Rural Marion County, Georgia hides 900 feet of hand-painted walls behind a farm gate

St. EOM’s Life Work in Georgia

Pull off a quiet, tree-lined road in rural Marion County, Georgia, and the first thing you see is a tall pagoda rising over a wall painted in bright orange and blue.

You’ve found Pasaquan, seven acres where a self-taught artist spent 30 years turning an old family farm into one of the country’s most dazzling folk art sites. He built it as a vision of a peaceful future.

What waits past that first wall explains why people make the drive.

The Poor Man’s Psychiatrist Who Painted Visions

Eddie Owens Martin was born in 1908 and grew up poor in a sharecropping family in Glen Alta, Georgia. He left home young and spent years living in New York City before he came back south.

Fortune telling became his living, and he called himself the poor man’s psychiatrist. He renamed himself St. EOM and said his art came from visions of a peaceful future people he named the Pasaquoyans.

About 30 years of work on the land ended with his death in 1986.

Pass Between Two Guardians at the Entrance

Two large figures stand guard at the front entrance, one on each side of the gate. Martin said they stood for the Pasaquoyans, the future people he saw in his visions.

Bright painted posts and gateways mark the spot where the ordinary road behind you ends and Pasaquan begins.

Just past that first wall, you will find portraits Martin painted of friends he made during his years in New York. The gate is only the beginning of what waits inside.

Walk Along 900 Feet of Painted Walls

More than 900 feet of masonry wall wind through the grounds at Pasaquan, and blank space is hard to find anywhere. Orange and yellow lead the color scheme, mixed with green, blue, and white.

Look closely and you will find geometric patterns, faces, crosses, animals, and snakes packed into every stretch of wall.

At the corners, where one section meets the next, tall totem figures stand guard over the whole layout. You could walk the full 900 feet and still miss half of it.

Climb the Blue-Ceilinged Pagoda

A tall pagoda is usually the first thing you notice at Pasaquan, and often the last. It rests on brightly painted cement pillars, with a water well underneath.

A curving staircase takes you up into a room where blue covers the walls and the ceiling. Above you, the ceiling fills with Martin’s cosmic circles and mandala designs.

Outside, the pagoda’s walls carry patterns busy enough to make you stop and look twice, along with one large pair of painted eyes.

Step Inside the Hand-Built Farmhouse

The family farmhouse anchors Pasaquan. It dates to the 1880s, and Martin doubled its size over the years.

Step inside and you will find glowing mandalas, his own paintings, and furniture he built with his hands. One chair combines linoleum, wood, and metal into a single piece.

A large mandala on one wall borrows its design from the Aztec Calendar Stone.

A short video on Martin’s life plays here too, giving you a break from walking and a little more of his story.

Totems Stare Back With Giant Eyes

Totems stand all over the grounds at Pasaquan, and you will even find some inside the house. Many carry oversized faces with wide, almond-shaped eyes that seem to track you as you pass.

Martin sculpted them from cement and painted them in colors that clash on purpose. Snakes, medallions, and sun shapes repeat across the surfaces, tying the sculptures to the walls around them.

If you want more after you leave, Atlanta’s Folk Art Park holds seven totems built as a tribute to this place.

Find the Hidden Meditation Room

Behind the main house sits a small room with no windows at all.

Mandalas cover both the inside and outside of its walls, and a curving staircase lined with snakes and medallions leads you down into it. A pair of large painted eyes watches over the entrance before you step through.

Martin most likely used the space as a temple or an altar room, somewhere separate from the rest of the property. You will feel the shift the moment you duck inside.

The Sand Pit Where St. EOM Danced

Near the pagoda, a round, open sand pit marks a ceremonial area unlike anything else on the property. Martin danced here on his own, performing rituals in homemade costumes and feathered headdresses he made himself.

A circular terrace and platform frame the space, giving it the feel of a stage.

This is where the private world Martin built came fully alive, away from visitors and away from the rest of Marion County. Standing here, you get the closest sense of who he really was.

Suits Made for Floating Off the Ground

In the kitchen, paintings show the Pasaquoyans wearing what Martin called levitation suits, floating above the ground with ease.

He believed the pressure points marked in the artwork could actually let people rise into the air. Martin took the idea far enough to make a levitation suit for himself.

He meant the entire site as a model for a peaceful future, one where every culture could live together in harmony. The kitchen paintings are where that future looks the most literal.

How Pasaquan Came Back From Ruin

After Martin died in 1986, weather and time took a heavy toll on the art he left behind. A local group, the Pasaquan Preservation Society, spent years protecting the site from ruin.

The Kohler Foundation and Columbus State University later led a two-year restoration to bring it back. Pasaquan reopened on Oct. 22, 2016, and Columbus State University owns and cares for the property.

It sits on the National Register of Historic Places and ranks among the most important visionary art sites in the country.

Slow Down and Spot the Small Details

Give yourself at least an hour at Pasaquan, since there is more here than you can take in on one pass. Guided tours often bring Martin’s stories to life in ways you would miss alone.

Look for small touches too, like scalloped tin trim, a decorated propane shed, and hidden faces. Students and artists from colleges across the region come to study the site up close.

Most visitors end up lingering, tracing the swirling patterns with their eyes.

Visiting Pasaquan in Buena Vista, Georgia

You can find Pasaquan about six miles east of Buena Vista in Marion County, roughly 30 minutes from Columbus, at 238 Eddie Martin Road.

It typically opens Friday through Sunday from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m., though it closes in July and December and on holidays.

Columbus State University owns and operates the property and asks for a suggested contribution of about $10 for adults, $5 for seniors, and $3 for students. The back roads have few signs, so bring GPS.

This article was created with AI assistance and human editing.

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