Christine Johnson spent an emotional day last Friday as she said goodbye to customers and a business she has enjoyed for the past 42 years.
The Art Shoppe on West Carolina Avenue is where she has guided and consulted with customers over the perfect moldings and mats for their painting, photographs and treasured objects before expertly framing them while getting to know their personalities and tastes in art.
“I’ve always loved and appreciated art,” said Johnson, an artist herself.
She has been thankful to have the help of Jackie Harwick for the past 12 years framing treasured items for the people of Hartsville and surrounding communities.
“I have loved the people,” Johnson said. “It has been a joy to get to know the unique personalities of a lot of people I didn’t know.”
Johnson fondly remembers the customers and the artwork they entrusted into her care.
She said she used to have a sign in her shop that read: “You name it; we frame it.”
And she recalls some unusual requests through the years for object to be framed.
One of the most usual requests came when she was just starting out in business. Johnson said a man and a woman from out of town came into her shop, which was then located downtown and the woman told her she had something in her pocketbook she would like framed.
Thinking it couldn’t be very big, Johnson was curious and asked to see it.
She was shocked when the woman pulled out a gun. The woman said the man had a son who had taken his life with the gun.
Johnson wasn’t sure why they wanted it framed, but she did it. She returned it to them framed in a shadow box, only to have the woman return shortly thereafter requesting it be reframed. Johnson said someone had accidentally sat on it. Johnson said she told the woman to be careful with it the next time, because she didn’t want to have to reframe it again.
Several times she was asked to frame shoes, everything from baby shoes to a worn out pair of men’s shoes. She even framed a very big athletic shoe of a rather famous basketball player whose name she couldn’t remember.
Another unusual request was to frame two bird nests, she said.
During the life of her shop and gallery, Johnson has supported budding artists as well as some well-known artists, including Jim Harrison, Jane Jackson and Jim Howle.
Her son, Dale, a certified picture framer who worked with her for awhile, and his wife, Mary Ellen, are accomplished artists who have often had their artwork on display in the shop. Their son, Seth, has followed in the family’s artistic footsteps. Their artwork was featured in the Black Creek Art Gallery as an exhibit by three generations of artists.
Johnson started the shop with her husband, the late Everett Johnson, in the downtown location, and she remained there for 19 years after he moved his real estate business to her present location.
“He loved art,” she said. “He could draw but he didn’t have the time.”
Johnson’s daughter, Susan Schroer, who was helping her close up shop on Friday, said her mother is also great at doing portraits and maybe now that she is retiring will have more time to enjoy painting.
Johnson, who will soon move to Mount Pleasant to be with her daughter, was quick to say that if she got bored she might have to come back and open up shop again.
She has another son, Eric, who lives in North Carolina, two grandchildren and two great-grandchildren to keep her busy.
“I’m moving to an area where I’m going to have to learn to be active,” she said. “It is time to start a new chapter in my life.”
She said it has been difficult to tell people she can’t frame their work anymore.
“I don’t know how I will survive without this,” said Johnson.
This article originally appeared on SCNow.com and was written by Ardie Arvidson.
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