It’s All Beauty

Art in the Arboretum returns, expecting its biggest show yet

By Isabelle Altman

On an autumn day in 2023, potter Sarah Hinceman sat at a booth in the New Hanover County Arboretum, surrounded by her creations, as live music and the chatter of art enthusiasts filled the gardens around her.

It was the 28th Art in the Arboretum, a juried art show highlighting the work of artists and craftspeople from Wilmington and the surrounding areas. Held annually in the New Hanover County Arboretum, the show is one of the largest local events for artists to show and sell their work, as well as a major fundraiser to support the garden’s education programming. 

Hinceman had officially started her business, Love & Light Pottery, only a year earlier, and the show was a professional opportunity she couldn’t miss. The mugs, vases, and platters that surrounded her represented a sampling of her work, most of which featured her preferred colors of blue, green, and purple. She never expected to win first place. 

“I was blown away,” she says.

This year, Hinceman, along with dozens of other artists, will again apply to the Art in the Arboretum, back Oct. 10-12 after a one-year hiatus. Organizers Brad Carter and Roben Jarrett say it will likely be the biggest the show has ever been, with up to 90 booths. 

The weekend-long event kicks off with an opening reception on Friday, Oct. 10, where guests can mingle with the artists. On Saturday and Sunday, visitors can pay a $5 admission fee to explore the arboretum, which will feature live music, food trucks, and a wide range of artists showcasing work in painting, woodworking, metalworking, textiles, and mixed media.

Children’s artwork will also be on display at the Education Center, which has partnered with local children’s art organizations Kids Making It, Dreams of Wilmington, and 4H. That part of the event is free.

“You can’t beat the backdrop here at the arboretum,” says Carter, who runs Arts n NC Events and is contracted by the county to put on Art in the Arboretum. “We have other great shows in town. …Here you have the gardens and trees, the waters (and) that atmosphere this year with the kids and the music.”

For artists like painter Whitney Futrell, of Leland-based Whitney Futrell Arts, the show’s location was part of the draw. It was her first year doing full-time shows. Her booth sat on an incline beneath a tree, and she spread her paintings out beneath its branches. It’s one of her favorite places to do a show.

 “All these little nooks and crannies that you can kind of walk through on a path where you’ve got so many flowers to look at, so many beautiful trees, little water structures…and then all of these vendors tucked in everywhere,” says Futrell, who won third place.

Exposure is important for Futrell because commissions make up about 40 percent of her business. She uses acrylics and oils to paint women, focusing on their bodies. It’s an intimate, involved process. Usually, the women she paints want to commemorate something about where they are in their lives at the time of the portrait. Futrell always starts by talking with them and finds they often open up with personal stories and details. It’s not where she saw her art going when she began painting coastal scenes and florals in graduate school, but it’s become a “sweet little gift,” she said.

For Hinceman and second-place winner Lauren Rogers of Lauren Rogers Ceramics, the work is a little more solitary. Creating ceramics involves days or weeks of work, starting with molding the clay into shape before baking it twice in their kilns, glazing it to add color in between the two bakes.

Spending so much time with an individual mug or vase means she knows it pretty intimately, said Rogers. Which is why it’s so special when a complete stranger stops by her booth and something about that mug or vase captures their attention.

“I’ve raised this thing … and now I’m sending it out into the world,” Rogers says.

Hinceman believes when a person connects with an individual piece like that, they’re connecting with her as well. 

“They can take that piece…and it can continue to be present in their lives. It’s a continuation of that connection,” she said. “I also love that it can bring beauty and elegance into their everyday living.”

Hinceman has a new series she’s working on called the Peacock Collection, which she hopes to share at this year’s Art in the Arboretum. The green and white china is inspired by the Peacock Room at the Frier Gallery of Art in Washington, DC. Meanwhile, Rogers and Futrell are also expanding their businesses. Rogers has invested in a second kiln, and Futrell is doing more shows outside of Wilmington, expanding her audience—though she also plans to have a booth at this year’s event.

Each artist emphasized how vital shows like this are for connecting their work with the wider community—because whether it’s gardens or visual art, as Carter says, “it’s all beauty.”