Christenberry is also considered a pioneer of colored photography as an art form; he was especially encouraged in the medium by the likes of Walker Evans and William Eggleston.

His father tried to attend college but found it too expensive and spent his life working as a delivery man for a bakery and a salesman of dairy and insurance.

Christenberry was originally influenced by Abstract expressionism and his studies under Melville Price, but later found himself more attracted to the type of realism attributed to Jasper Johns and Robert Rauschenberg.

[2] His artistic career began with painting – specifically large, abstract-expressionist canvasses, but his focus and inspiration shifted to the place and memories of his childhood.

[3] After receiving his degrees Christenberry stayed at the University of Alabama for a few years as a teacher and in 1961 he encountered James Agee and Walker Evans' book, "Let Us Now Praise Famous Men", which brought inspiration to the work Christenberry was already completing – namely his direct-address photographs of Hale County which he had started taking in 1958 with his Brownie camera (from 1944).

In 1974, Christenberry began translating some of these photographed buildings into detailed sculptures that accurately reproduce their state of decay and patina.

Although detailed and properly proportioned, Christenberry did not refer to these creations as models, as he says they are not based on precise measurements, and he preferred that they be called sculptures.

Christenberry largely reconstructed the room, which is filled with paintings, found objects, drawings, sculptures, dioramas, and a series of fabric dolls of Klansmen in their hooded robes.