WINNSBORO – Winnsboro folk artist Christy Buchanan, who teaches architecture at Midlands Technical College, is fond of advising her students, “You must have a passion for something – not just your kids or your job – but something that will always sustain you.”
Buchanan practices what she teaches and for her, that passion is painting.
Prolifically creative and productive, she paints everything.
Really… everything!
And much of what she has painted can be found in The She Garden, a year-round outdoor art gallery that pretty much encompasses the front half of the two acres where Buchanan lives in a small granite home at the intersection of Newberry Road and Highway 321 Bypass in Winnsboro.
On Saturday, The She Garden was the location of Buchanan’s first Christyfest with 17 folk art vendors and more than 500 attendees from across the state.
“It was our first annual Christyfest, and I’m very proud of how successful it was,” Buchanan says about the event. “I’ve been participating in folk art festivals across the Southeast for almost 20 years and finally decided it was time for me to host one at The She Garden.”
Not only did the fest draw some of the state’s most outstanding folk artists, showing and selling their work, but the event was well attended by locals as well as folk art enthusiasts from as far away as Greenville, Ashville, Charlotte, Charleston, and other towns across the state.
The unique targets of Buchanan’s brush are, for the most part, recycled – used furniture pieces, lamps, shades, sofa pillows, trays, jewelry, both wooden and upholstered chairs and couches, glassware, walls, boats, woodwork, buildings and found objects.
The list is as endless as there are paintable surfaces.
Popular right now, Buchanan says, are items featuring her colorful signature Christy hearts.
Call her creations whimsical, fine, faux, folk or fun – the reaction is the same. They make people smile. But much of Buchanan’s artwork is functional as well as entertaining.
Her painted furnishings can be found not only in Blythewood and Fairfield County homes, but in homes as far away as Florida and California. Buchanan says a woman in Texas orders from her Facebook store regularly.
Buchanan says her passion for painting began when she was a teen.
“My parents were out of town and I decided to paint my room,” Buchanan says, “I wanted flowers on my floor. In school, I participated in lots of kinds of art – drawing, pottery, drama, band – but I never took an art class.”
Still, she produced enough hand painted T-shirts and earrings to pay her way to Italy where she spent a semester while in graduate school at Clemson University studying architecture.
“I think I really started learning to paint after I graduated college. I had a degree in architecture, got a job, and bought a circa 1840’s house in downtown Columbia. The first thing I did was faux paint the walls,” she says, with a laugh. And she kept going from there.
Today, her house, her furniture, her shop, her clothes, the trees in her yard, and even the dog house are all works of art.
As a single mom – her two children are now 28 and almost 30 years old – Buchanan opened the All Things Painted shop in downtown Winnsboro in 2013, where she received her first celebrity order – a dog bowl – from television’s Sex and the City star Kristin Davis.
After purchasing the granite house on Newberry Road that same year, she opened a shop on her property dubbed The Painted Picket. A few years ago, she expanded that shop into the front yard of her home as The She Garden.
“I love this garden,” she said, admiring a huge archway in the front yard of the shop she made from old bicycle frames and wheels. “It’s all about whimsy,” Buchanan said, spinning a wheel on her creation.
In addition to painting a pontoon boat for friends in North Carolina, Buchanan painted her 1999 Honda CRK and drove it to Texas in 2022 where it was a winner in the Houston Art Car Show that boasted 250 entries.
Buchanan recently purchased a 1974 Ford camper she named ‘Sunshine.’ After new tires and a tuneup [she says it’s only been driven 40K miles], she looks forward to painting the 50-year-old motorized camper and wowing interstate travelers as she takes off to the mountains and beach now and again.
“It’s going to make everybody on the road smile,” she says, marveling that it’s so old it still has ashtrays.
She says her next addition to The She Garden is a pair of vintage Airstreams she recently purchased – a 1974 Excella and a 1972 Sovereign – and plans to turn into art-filled Airbnbs.
“I’ll upfit the inside of them myself,” she says, then pauses. “I teach architecture. I can build things, but they’re always a little crooked,” she adds with a smile.
“Everybody appreciates a piece of original art whether it’s a chair, a painting, a building or a painted Airstream,” she says.
Buchanan says her work has appeared in several national magazines, and her star appears to be rising. But for now, her focus remains on The She Garden – painting it and promoting it.
“I love to paint,” she says, “It makes me happy.”
The She Garden is located at 1450 Newberry Road in Winnsboro and Buchanan’s work is available in her shop – an indoor-outdoor weathered shed in the garden – which is open Saturdays. Her Facebook page is Christy Buchanan’s She Garden and her website is ownachristy.com.
