Cape Lookout Morning, Edwin Voorhees
A local collector might think of the Voorhees family while placing an August sunflower in a blue stoneware vase (potter David Voorhees has long operated his studio and kiln in Zirconia). A wearer of art might sport a pair of Molly Sharp Voorhees’ elegant stacked-pebble earrings while out for dinner at an outdoor bistro on Hendersonville’s Main Street. Still more regional art lovers know the Voorhees name from the clan’s annual fall group shows in their respective home studios from Asheville to Morehead City. But Nature & Nurture: The Voorhees Family Artistic Legacy reveals the full breadth of the dynasty, with the work of no less than eight Voorhees family members on display at the NC Arboretum’s Baker Visitor Center Exhibit Hall. It all started when Edwin and Mildred Voorhees moved to the North Carolina coast mid last century, bent on becoming painters and raising a brood of artists in a beautiful natural setting. This painting by the patriarch, “Cape Lookout Morning,” expresses the genesis of that journey, now staunchly rooted at both ends of the state.
Nature & Nurture: The Voorhees Family Artistic Legacy. Through Sept. 5, free with NC Arboretum parking admission,