One man’s vivid gift to God has been successfully preserved — and will soon reopen to the public as a dazzling display of his devotion, the Art Newspaper first reported.
In Niagara Falls, New York, the self-titled “Prophet” Isaiah Robertson’s eye-catching home — which the Jamaican-born carpenter renovated into a kaleidoscopic work of art following an epiphany — is, following a period of uncertainty, nearly ready to again accept visitors.
After moving to Niagara Falls in 2004, Robertson had a vision: The apocalypse would take place before the great Falls, and God needed him to fill his home with biblical imagery. And so, over the subsequent years, he painted enormous quantities of cut-out wooden shapes with symbolic shapes and installed a 25-foot wooden cross in his driveway.
His humble abode, known as the Prophet Isiah’s Second Coming House, became a radiant fixture in his residential neighborhood, attracting visitors from across the globe to whom he’d offer spiritual guidance.
In 2020, Robertson passed away, and his creation’s fate suddenly hung in the balance.
Now, though, its salvation is secured thanks to photographer Fred Scruton, a repeat visitor and longtime lover of Robertson’s work who, after his passing, contacted the art preservation-group Kohler Foundation. The foundation acquired the house and worked to carefully document, dismantle and then reassemble it.
That reassembled version was gifted it to the Niagara Falls National Heritage Area in October 2023, and it is now slated to reopen in Niagara as an art destination and a community gathering space this summer, according to the Art Newspaper.
“The power of this project is not only in preserving an art environment but in revitalizing a neighborhood, which is critically important to places like Niagara Falls that have had decades of decline,” Sara Capen, Niagara Falls National Heritage Area’s executive director, told the publication. “It has led the neighbors that are directly next to it to improve their porches, to do small construction projects, to plant a garden. That’s a powerful testament to what preservation can do. It’s an extension of what we feel is the artist’s energy, this is what he put out here to the world.”
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