Murphy – When artist Sarah Michelle Hembree passed away on May 23, she left behind a large collection of paintings and pottery. Her family wants that art to find homes, so they donated many works to the Cherokee County Arts Council.
David Vowell, executive director of the arts council, said there were several people in Murphy who supported Hembree early in her career as an artist.
“The family wants some of the art to benefit the arts community,” Vowell said. “It’s a very nice gift. … We look forward to being able to find homes for everything.”
The Sarah Hembree Collection will be shown in the Cultural Calendar Room of the Murphy Art Center starting last Friday. The collection includes about 400 pieces of functional Appalachian pottery and six abstract oil paintings.
All pieces are for sale at a reasonable price. The proceeds from the exhibit will go to the Cherokee County Arts Council and Valley River Arts Guild. The council will use the funds raised to help pay their bills; Vowell said the top expense for the council is rent, as he is working as a volunteer.
Hembree was born in Murphy in 1963. After earning degrees in commercial photography and business communications at the Art Institute of Atlanta and University of West Virginia, respectively, then honing her artistic skills as a painter and potter in Maryland, she returned home to Murphy.
Vowell first saw Hembree’s work when he owned David’s Fine Art for the Mountain Community, where he exhibited many of her paintings in 2006.
Vowell said he looks for ways to be supportive of communities that experience injustice in our society. Hembree was a member of one of those communities, and her story will be shared at the exhibit.
The MAC is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Saturday and 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. The exhibit is scheduled to run through the end of September. For details, call the arts council at 835-0550.