John Gaston Fairey was born on November 17, 1930, in St. Matthews, South Carolina to Isabel Strait Fairey and Philip Washington Fairey. John was born into a family of amateur gardeners. His mother had John and his three older brothers working in the family garden every summer of his youth. John has recounted how there were a handful of families in the community that gardened as an entire family. After receiving his Bachelor of Arts at Erskine College in South Carolina in 1964, John continued his arts education with four years of training at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts.  He later received a Master of Fine Arts at the University of Pennsylvania where he studied under American masters Barnet Newman, Robert Motherwell, Clyfford Still, and David Smith.

John made his way from Pennsylvania to Texas to begin a position teaching first year design in the Department of Architecture at Texas A&M University in College Station. John would become a Regents Professor of Architecture at the University, teaching there for 49 years. He received the Texas A&M Alumni Teaching Award and Honorable Mention for the AIA National Honors Teaching Award. He was promoted to Regents Professor for International Research in 2003, with an emphasis on plant exploration. John was a challenging but beloved professor, earning life-long respect from his students and fellow faculty.