Christine Patterson is a Tennessee-born artist and mentor based in Charleston, South Carolina. She spends her days making art, and helping others discover the artist within.
For more than forty years I've followed my curiosity, from a camera in the hills of Tennessee to the hand built mixed media I make today. To me every piece is a conversation. It holds time and memory, and helps us see something familiar in a different light.
These days I make art and I help others make theirs. Because I believe it with my whole heart: there is an artist in everyone, waiting to be met.
Tennessee's Bicentennial Photographer · collected by the Tennessee State Museum and beyond · two published books · thirty plus years exhibiting nationally.
Read Her Full Story"Walls of Time explores what remains beneath layers of time, memory, and experience. Inspired by physical walls, they become metaphors for our lives, holding traces of what has been covered, altered, protected, preserved, and revealed."
Like an archaeological dig, each layer uncovers evidence of what came before, revealing the quiet beauty of a life fully lived. Three marks recur throughout the series, threading each work together while allowing every piece its own character. The work invites a slower way of looking, where meaning emerges through attention rather than explanation.
"We are all walls. We all carry layers and layers of a life."
Christine teaches at Redux Contemporary Art Center and mentors artists one on one. It is less about technique and more about permission, building a little base camp in your mind so you can climb toward the work only you can make. No rules, no fear of doing it wrong, just the freedom to create.
Christine started in the most unlikely place. A psychology degree and a job selling cameras, having never once picked one up. It began with a small element of surprise and grew into something she could never have predicted, a confidence she had never felt anywhere else, all of it arriving through creativity.
"The love of translating a feeling, and the gratefulness of curiosity."
Out on her own, Christine fell in love with history, memory, and the retelling of other people's stories. Her grandmother gave her one piece of advice: explore everything in your own backyard before you go looking further. So she did. She drove thousands of miles across Tennessee photographing places more than two centuries old, always pushing past the edge of the map toward the abandoned and the overlooked.
"All because my grandmother said, explore your backyard."
This was the season of raising children and reinventing herself at the same time. New film, new tools, new technology. She taught herself to make darkroom photography by digital means, all while caring for her kids, and came away empowered rather than left behind. Her family has shaped everything since. She still makes art alongside her daughter and works closely with her son, and it carried her right to the work she makes today.
A houseful of kids, a head full of curiosity, and the courage to begin again.
Photography, painting, and mixed media, all from one curious eye.
Come find yours. Create alongside Christine, bring her work into your home, or simply come see it in person.
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