The House of Voorhees

Solstice Arts at Tigg's Pond reveals the living legacy of the Voorhees clan.

Solstice Arts at Tigg’s Pond reveals the living legacy of the Voorhees clan.

Call it the House of Medici, Henderson County style — the Voorhees family has produced enough artists in just two generations to ornament the entire Blue Ridge escarpment. There’s potter patriarch David Voorhees; his wife, jewelry artist Molly Sharp Voorhees (the subject of a feature story in this month’s print edition of Bold Life: Lady of the Rings); David’s sisters Jane and Susan Voorhees and his sister-in-law, Amy Voorhees, all painters/printmakers; and David’s daughter, Elizabeth Voorhees Becker, a fine-art photographer.

The elder Voorheeses have been making art for 30 years or more, but it’s only for three years that the clan has revealed their creative processes to the public. Solstice Arts at Tigg’s Pond Retreat Center is a two-day event that features the full-media spectrum of Voorhees wares, along with the work of select invited artists, this year including birdhouse crafter Walt Cottingham, fiber artist Lorraine Cathey, finger-painting stylist Amy Perrier, cartoonist Randy Molton, and others.

Live music, demonstrations, an on-site food truck, and tours of the retreat — a destination by itself, Tigg’s Pond features a meditative labyrinth and other bucolic amenities, though the art event happens indoors — are part of the two-day celebration.

A quote from Molly in the Bold Life article, musing on the life of a jewelry artist, might serve to enshrine the entire Voorhees hard-work-plus-expanding-horizons ethic, their alchemy of success, as it were: “New ideas, tools, and techniques are coming to the forefront every day … which is exciting … but holding on to what came first and learning those skills is, in my mind, the basis of becoming great.”

Saturday, June 18 (10am-5pm) and Sunday, June 19 (noon-5pm). Tigg’s Pond Retreat Center is located at 212 Fiddlehead Lane in Zirconia. For directions and more information, see davidvoorheespottery.com, call 828-698-8775 or e-mail voorheespottery@gmail.com.

 

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