Jean Young Turnbull, noting that she begot several generations of artists, once asked her daughter, Nancy Turnbull Behm, where it all came from.

"We were never artists," said Jean Turnbull, according to her daughter.

It's a question that even Nancy Behm, of New Wilmington, can't specifically answer. But genetics appears to have a lot to do with it.

Ms. Behm said, from a very young girl, she could be found sprawled out on a floor of her Iowa farmhouse with a piece of a paper and a pencil.

"As children, we drew all the time," said Ms. Behm's sister, Cathryn Turnbull Mongiat, of Davenport, Iowa, who taught art at a private school her children attended. "Nobody ever said, 'Let's paint together.'"

And no one ever said, "let's show our work together," until a couple of years ago, when Ms. Behm told Jacqueline Millner, executive director of the Valley Arts Guild, Sharon, about her children.

Three generations of the family will show their artistic side in paintings, photographs and other media in a show that opens Friday at the guild.

Ms. Behm, a watercolor painter, will show with her sons Jeffrey and John, and daughter, Cathryn Behm Wright; Jeffrey's daughter, Julianne; Cathryn's husband, Robert Wright, and their son, Justin; John's wife, Rachael Long Behm, and their children, Tulta and Angus.

Ms. Mongiat's family members with works in the show are her daughters, Elizabeth Hunt O'Brien and Katy Hunt Leese, and sons, Andrew Turnbull Hunt and Alexander Mongiat, and Andrew's wife, Nancy Dean-Hunt.

Ms. Behm said that, once she agreed to the show, she was nearly overwhelmed by the logistics of arranging it.

"How am I going to contact them and get everything?" she said she asked herself.

Just on her side of the family, Jeffrey lives in the New Castle area, but Cathryn lives in Vermont and John in Scotland.

She said the show came together by her "force of will," and has been fun to organize.

She admitted to being scared that no one will come to see the show, but that is unlikely with the pedigree of the artists.

John is an oil painter, sculptor, woodworker, furniture builder and architect. Elizabeth is executive director of the Nantucket (Mass.) Artists Association. Rachael's sculptures are can be seen at private homes and gardens, a zoo and hotels. Jeffrey has a photography studio near New Castle. Tulta's oil painting of Pierce Brosnan and Rene Russo, which will not be in the show, was used in a promotion for the European opening of "The Thomas Crown Affair."

The show, which runs through May 30, opens with a reception at 7 p.m. Friday. Information: (724) 983-1834 and www.artgally.com/vag