Kevin Pettit stands in front of his finished mural on the side of Mrs. Goodfoot, a nail salon on Knox Abbot Drive. The mural was finished in September and honors the local Guignard family. (Photo by Tyler Fedor)
Donna Muszynski bought the building that would become her nail salon in 2018.
The view of one of the outer walls was blocked by storage containers, though, hampering a dream.
“You really couldn’t even see the wall,” said Muszynski, whose Mrs. Goodfoot business primarily serves diabetic and geriatric patients. “But just knowing the potential – what was underneath that – I just always had a daydream of putting a mural on that wall.”
Now, instead of storage containers, there is a mural depicting a giant peacock, a Hindu mandala and a smaller plume of peacock feathers. People have even gravitated toward it for photo shoots.
The peacock design was chosen to honor the local Guignard family, who once raised peacocks on their land that stretches from the Guignard Brickworks historic site to the family house in the Still Hopes Retirement Community.
Bruce Guignard leased the building that is now Mrs. Goodfoot.
“When she showed me some of the ideas that they were bouncing around, I thought it was pretty cool,” Guignard said. “It’s certainly better than giving something else the Guignard name.”
Muszynski recruited Kevin Pettit, a local artist and art teacher at Irmo High School, to paint the mural. Before that, though, she asked other muralists how much a mural would cost, such as the one who painted an astronaut mural on the side of a smoke shop north of Muszynski’s salon.
She used these quotes to create a GoFundMe to fund the mural and raised more than $2,000.
Pettit decided to paint the mural after his wife, a longtime friend of Muszynski, saw her Facebook post requesting a muralist.
Pettit painted each part of the mural one at a time and even received help from a local store that donated paint and wishes to remain anonymous. During the three-month process, Pettit would work in some of the hottest temperatures Columbia had seen during its summers since the 1950s, according to WLTX.
“There were a couple of times where, really, I quit,” Pettit said “… If it got to be too much.”
He loaded his Nissan Pathfinder with lots of water and put up a patio umbrella to deal with the record heat. His family also would help him paint from time to time. The names of his wife and three kids are painted into the mural.
Pettit, who lives in West Columbia, said he was happy to see more artwork going up around his home, especially since some of it is now his own. He said he wants to continue painting murals and be “one of the best (muralists) in a few years.”
“I feel better about making West Columbia and Cayce look cooler, more metropolitan, than I do about me at all,” Pettit said. “Whether I’m doing it or someone else is doing it, … it’s great to be part of it. It’s a lot of fun.”
The mural is now all over the Mrs. Goodfoot’s Facebook page, with photos of people posing in front of the smaller peacock feathers with family and friends.
“It’s a good feeling of community to see,” Muszynski said. “People appreciate it and then leave the space a little better than I found it.”
The peacock mural in its early stages. Kevin Pettit started working on the mural in June this year. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Pettit)
Kevin Pettit poses in front of an early form of his mural. He’d wear a shirt allowing for the easy wringing out of sweat and a wide brimmed hat to deal with the record-breaking Columbia heat. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Pettit)
The peacock on the mural was inspired by the Guignard family, who raised the birds on their land in the past. They also leased the building housing Mrs. Goodfoot, whose outer wall now sports the peacock. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Pettit)
Pettit’s daughter, Lydia, helps paint the large peacock on the left side of the mural. She and her other two siblings, as well as Pettit’s wife, helped at some points to paint the mural. (Photo courtesy of Kevin Pettit)
