Photos courtesy of Michelle Scarborough Johnson

From fairies to potheads (literally), this yard art is an expression of personality and playfulness.

There’s no rest for makers like Michelle Scarborough Johnson, who has been creating yard art and garden sculptures for the past 10 years.

Her creative juices never stop flowing – even in her sleep.

“I’ll wake up in the morning with an idea and think, ‘I could do this,’” Michelle says.

The retired critical care nurse makes her pieces out of hypertufa, which is a lightweight, porous, manmade rock consisting of Portland cement and aggregates such as vermiculite, perlite, peat moss or sand. She mixes up the cement-based substance, which is a substitute for a porous type of limestone called tufa, herself using a recipe she found online.

“I honestly don’t remember where I saw it, but I taught myself,” Michelle says.

Recycled and Refurbished

Yard art is just the latest creative endeavor for this self-taught artist.

“I sew a lot. I paint. I quilt,” Michelle says. “I always wanted to make pottery, but you need a kiln. I love gardening.”

When Michelle was 10 years old, her grandmother taught her how to sew. Otherwise, however, she taught herself the other crafts.

“It’s very fulfilling for me to be making something all the time,” says Michelle, a mother of six who earned her nursing degree at age 42.

She makes hats out of refurbished materials, and for every hat she sells, she donates one to someone in need.

She also incorporates discarded and recyclable materials such as wine bottles, plastics, metal hardware, balloons, ice cream containers, milk jugs and strips of fabric into her hypertufa projects.

“I wrap the bottles in old clothes that can’t be donated,” says Michelle. “I dip the fabric in cement. As it dries, I build it on top of the mixture.”

Her tools include old screwdrivers, picks, a drill and paintbrushes. “I just make do with what I have,” she says.

Fairies and Potheads

Michelle hand-molds her pieces, and she works in her outdoor studio on her 2-acre property in Blythe. Some of her favorite things to make are fairies and “potheads,” which are head-shaped planters.

“I talk to them while I’m making them,” Michelle says. “Some of them are kind of flirtatious. They have smoochy lips. The snarky ones have sly smiles. They develop a personality as I’m making them. I feel like people want to buy them when they see something in them. I don’t make their personality. I just let it evolve.”

Although each fairy and pothead has its own personality, they have a lot of similarities in their faces because of the way Michelle molds them. In addition, they generally have one characteristic in common. Most of them have their eyes closed.

“They look peaceful to me,” Michelle says. “I’ve done them with their eyes open, but they don’t look as happy.”

She rarely names her creations, either. “I let everybody choose what they want to call their pothead,” she says.

One of her fairies, which has rosy cheeks and wings, a blue dress and hair made of bed springs, has been selected for inclusion in the Greater Augusta Arts Council’s WetPaint Party & Art Sale on Friday, March 8.

To make fairy wings, she casts elephant ears or various leaves that she finds in her garden. “I use old jewelry on the fairies,” Michelle says. “I used to make jewelry, so I have a lot of jewelry supplies.”

To make a pothead, she starts with a balloon that she wraps in strips of cement-dipped fabric. Once it dries, she turns it upside down to drill a hole in the bottom.

While Michelle can shape a piece in an hour or two, it can take a few days to finish the yard art because the work has to be done in stages. However, she says she can spend a month making a garden fairy.

Texture and Color

Michelle also paints her hypertufa pieces with acrylics, and after drying and curing them, she seals them with concrete so they can withstand the elements.

“I love texture and color,” she says. “They’re just so natural and pretty.”

She likes secondary colors such as purple, teal and orange, and she highlights textures with off-white paint. However, she tries to make her pieces look natural in their outdoor setting.

“I want them to look like they belong there, but I also want them to stand out,” Michelle says.

She paints the elephant ears, which she also uses to make yard art such as birdbaths, a different color from the grass to make them stand out. In addition, she makes totem poles by putting a piece of rebar in the ground and stacking it with hypertufa pieces that she makes one at a time.

Six years ago, she spent the entire summer building a pathway with pavers she made out of cement to connect the greenhouses in her garden.

Although she doesn’t use her nursing skills in her craft, she has found that it takes a combination of art and science to create a piece.

She needs to use the correct proportions of aggregates when she mixes the hypertufa so it doesn’t crumble. Anatomy also comes into play when she makes fairies and potheads because “the ears need to be equal with the eyes.”

In addition, she says, “My pieces are not anatomically correct, but that’s part of the fun of it.”

Creativity and Connection

Michelle started a Facebook page called Hypertufa Heffas, which is named after the heifers that graze in a field behind her property. She sells most of her work on various Facebook sites or by word-of-mouth.

“It’s fun when somebody really loves a face and they connect with it somehow,” Michelle says. “Sometimes the personality speaks to them. I love that somebody loves a piece.”

She teaches group and private classes and hosts parties at her outdoor studio when the weather is warm. She also loves the creative process and the ability to bring joy to others with her work.

“Being able to create something frees up your mind. You can get lost in it. When you’re gone, you have something to leave behind. Something you make by hand is more important than a piece of furniture,” says Michelle. “It’s good for my spirit to be creative. I think artists just have this need to always be making something.”

By Leigh Howard

Local PGA Tour player Luke List and his wife, Chloe, an Evans High School alum, recently presented a check for $250,000 to Children’s Hospital of Georgia to support the expansion of its Children’s Pediatric Intensive Care Unit.

The donation was made possible by the proceeds List earned when he won the RSM Birdies for Love charity competition during the 2022-23 PGA Tour season.

The Lists’ son, Harrison, was born prematurely June 5, 2021. After leaving the hospital, Harrison soon was readmitted due to RSV, a respiratory virus, and was intubated for two days. He ultimately spent two weeks in intensive care at Children’s Hospital.

“It means so much to me and my family to have this opportunity to give back,” List said. “We want to share our story just to have people know what they do here and how much they’re really giving and really change lives.”

Disney World meets the North Pole for the holidays at this Evans home

Some people celebrate Christmas by stringing hundreds of lights on their house every year. Others blanket their yard with a dozen holiday inflatables. Minimalists might hang a single wreath on the door.

Then there’s Evans resident Monty “Santa” Clark, who hand-crafts his own outdoor decorations for the holidays. For almost four decades, he has built life-size, Christmas-themed plywood cutouts of Disney characters to display on his front lawn in St. Andrews subdivision off of Evans to Locks Road.

“You have to create love this time of year,” says Clark, who also dresses as jolly old St. Nick. “I want people to come to my house to see what I’ve done – and bring a smile with them.”

Lawn Party
Clark, who works as an electrical construction supervisor, made his first cutout 37 years ago. His mother had made a Santa Claus and a Disney character to put in her yard two years earlier, and he was inspired.

“I loved them, and I wanted to do it, too,” Clark says.

His wife, Lynne, aka his “quality control officer,” was on board, and the tradition grew after their now-grown children, Rebekah, Peyton and Seth, were born. With the addition of four granddaughters and a grandson to the family, their efforts only intensified.

However, he not only made characters for his wife and children. He constructed Goofy in 1990 for his stepfather. After he passed away, however, his mother gave the cutout back to her son.

He also made the eight not-so-tiny reindeer pulling a sleigh for his late father-in-law. Mickey Mouse and Minnie Mouse, which Clark made 25 or 30 years ago, are longtime members of the cutout family as well.

Other characters at the lawn party include Donald Duck and Daisy Duck, along with Huey, Dewey and Louie; Scrooge McDuck; Pluto; Winnie the Pooh with Piglet, Tigger and Eeyore; and Pongo and Perdita, the lovestruck pups of 101 Dalmatians fame.

As Clark’s family has changed, so has the cast of characters.

“Every couple of years or so, I build a new one,” says Clark. “When I had granddaughters, I had to start making Disney princesses.”

In honor of the film, Frozen, he built a vignette of characters including Elsa; Anna; Olaf, the snowman; and Sven, the reindeer.

Another set includes the stars of Beauty and the Beast such as Belle; the Beast; Mrs. Potts, the enchanted teapot; and Lumiere, the charismatic candelabra.

“I like to make scenes and groupings of different characters,” Clark says.

Join the Crowd
Clark first picked up a paintbrush before he started making the cutouts. After he was electrocuted on the job in 1981, painting was part of his therapy when he was in and out of the hospital for 11 months as a burn patient.

He uses exterior house paint on the plywood characters so they can withstand the elements. He paints the side, back and bottom of every board. To fill in the details, he uses makeup brushes.

“I paint until the character comes alive and tells me that I’m done,” Clark says. “Once the character looks like it can talk to me, I know I’m finished. It says, ‘Thank you for making me. I’m ready to join the crowd.’”

When his daughters were young and invited friends to their house to play, the girls always wanted to help. Some of the characters that he made with them include Winnie the Pooh and Tigger.

“I let the kids paint them, and I told them not to worry about any mistakes because I could paint over them,” says Clark.

It takes him about four days to make a character, but he doesn’t have a particular plan for deciding which one to create. “I just feel it,” he says.

The Clarks start putting the cutouts in their yard the day after Halloween, and it takes them about three weeks to have each one in place.

“It’s a family activity,” Clark says. “They help me paint the characters and set them up in the yard.”

Visiting children can touch the characters and have their pictures taken with them. Although people have tried to buy the cutouts from him, he never sells them.

When Clark retires a character, he gives it to one of hisaughters to put in her yard.

Ho, Ho, Ho
Clark has been dressing as “Santa Clark” for about 10 years, and he knew when the time was right to take on his alter ego.

“My hair and my beard turned snow white,” he says.

As “Santa Clark,” he spends time with special needs children and does a few private parties. He uses the income he earns from the parties to donate to charities or to buy gifts for others.

On a Saturday or Sunday each year, Clark dons his Santa suit and sits in his yard so people can take pictures with him. The day varies, according to his schedule or the weather, but he posts a sign at the entrance to the subdivision to let passersby know they can visit Santa Claus.

“I enjoy bringing a smile to people’s faces,” he says. “People might be having a bad day, but they’re going to smile when they see Santa.”

They can’t help but grin when they see his characters as well.

“I want people to enjoy them, relax and feel good when they leave,” Clark says.

Get ready “fore” some music and golf with the area’s favorite sons and their celebrity guests.

Take a swing at some fun with Columbia County natives John, Josh and Charles Kelley when they host their second annual Sticks & Strings charity concert and golf tournament this month.

The festivities will include songs and stories from the Kelley brothers as they share their family’s love of music and golf with their friends and community.

Thomas Rhett, Darius Rucker and Jake Owen will join the Kelleys at the Columbia County Performing Arts Center for their charity concert on Sunday, November 19. Doors open at 6 p.m.; the concert begins at 7 p.m.

The golf tournament will be held at Champions Retreat on Monday, November 20. Registration and check-in begin at 9 a.m.; the shotgun start is scheduled for 11 a.m.

Proceeds from the event will benefit First Tee – Augusta, 12 Bands of Christmas and The John W. Kelley, M.D., Cardiovascular Endowment at the Piedmont Augusta Foundation. In last year’s inaugural event, they raised $45,000 for these charities.

Tickets are $40 to $350. For more information, visit kelleybrosgolf.com.

Crystal McDowell of Greenbrier High School has been named the 2023-24 Columbia County School District Teacher of the Year. She teaches biology and anatomy to students in grades nine through 12.

Her winnings include the opportunity to drive a 2023 BMW X1 on a one-year lease that is donated by Taylor BMW at no cost to the teacher.

In addition, ACHS Insurance donates insurance coverage at no cost and Affordable Auto Insurance donates a $1,000 gas voucher.