In one sense, James Hampton saw his garage as the throne room of God.

For 14 years, that’s where the war vet and janitor worked passionately and compulsively to create what TIME magazine art critic Robert Hughes wrote “may well be the finest work of visionary religious art by an American”.

Hampton called his creation The Throne of the Third Heaven of the Nations’ Millennium General Assembly, or The Throne, for short. The son of a one-time convict and traveling Baptist preacher, he started the project in 1950 after renting the garage in northwest Washington, D.C.

Every night after work, the untrained artist made painstaking progress on his intricate project, using discarded materials like aluminum and gold foil, old furniture, jelly jars, light bulbs, mirror shards, pieces of cardboard, and desk blotters joined with glue, tacks, pins, and tape.

Hampton used anything he could find to reflect light.

He called his work a monument to Jesus, and a personal way of preparing for His return. So, not surprisingly, his art was based heavily on Biblical imagery, including God’s gold and silver throne surrounded by angels, references to Judgment Day, and the crowns worn by the faithful in Revelation.

In addition, Hampton kept a 108-page notebook, written in a script no one has deciphered. And on a bulletin board in the garage was a quote from Proverbs 29: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.”

But few shared his........

© Sarnia Observer