Artist David Hadden
Wood artist David Hadden and painter Jane Voorhees are the featured artists for June at F.W. Front Gallery at Woolworth Walk. There will be an opening reception with the artists from 5–7 P.M. on Friday, June 3.
David traces his interest in working with wood to a time when he was ten years old and he and his cousin built a fort using old fruit crates. They spent days designing, measuring, sawing, and nailing. David says he was proud of what they’d accomplished. And he was hooked.
He says his only formal training was a few years of taking shop in high school, but his interest never waned. After college, he began buying tools and using them to help develop the skills he needed to start his own business. For the past 35 years, working with wood has provided him with a consistent pleasure.
Working in a small woodshop he built next to his home in Tennessee, David has become widely known for his furniture and for his cutting boards. The boards are built with an Arts and Crafts theme of linear symmetry, and his furniture features mortise-and-tenon joinery, live edge (utilizing the natural edge of the wood), design contrast, and contour that incorporate a contemporary aspect into traditional designs.
Artist, Jane Voorhees
Jane, who works in watercolors and pastels, grew up in coastal North Carolina in a large family of artists. She received her first watercolor lessons from her father, Edwin Voorhees, who is well known for his paintings of our state’s coastal scenes.
She studied at Eckerd College in St. Petersburg, Florida, and later attended the Art Students League of New York. For the past 30 years, Jane has called Western North Carolina home. In 2002, she started her own business, Voorhees Studio Designs, selling cards, prints, and original artwork. She also teaches regularly at John C. Campbell Folk School.
She credits her daily routine of sketching in pencil, pen and ink, and watercolor, with broadening her paintings in terms of definition and depth. “More than any other daily practice, sketching has honed my skills and awareness to everything around me—the beauty of simple things,” says Jane.
F.W. Front Gallery at Woolworth Walk, located at 25 Haywood Street in downtown Asheville, is open seven days a week (11 A.M. to 6 P.M. Monday through Thursday, 11 A.M. to 7 P.M. on Friday, 10 A.M. to 7 P.M. on Saturday, and 11 A.M. to 5 P.M. Sunday). For more information, call 828.254.9234 or visit woolworthwalk.com.
