Crow Valley Pottery’s 12th Annual Garden Art Show will open with a reception on Friday, June 16 from 4 to 7 p.m. The theme of this year’s show, which will run through July 5, will be birds and the beauty they bring to the garden.

To commemorate the shops 50th year in business a Birthday Party celebration will be held on Friday, June 26, from 4 to 7 p.m.

Kim Middleton whose paintings reflect her travels and her close work with birds as an ornithologist, bird trainer, wildlife rehabilitator, naturalist, field researcher, and wildlife artist will be one of several featured artists.

Jackie Kempfer will be presenting a collection of botanical paintings created for the show. Orcas artists Andrea Hendrick and Mary McCullock, cast glass by Lopez artist Gerry Newcomb and whimsical garden benches by San Juan Island artists Karen Lundin and Joe Buckler add to the mix of local offerings.

Renowned Washington artist and teacher Debby Neely’s transformation of a simple wood plank into the basis for a finished work of art in a demonstration of woodcut art is a rare opportunity being offered during the show’s opening Friday evening and on Saturday.

The work of Crow Valley Pottery owners Jeffri Coleman and Michael Rivkin will also be on display.

Richard Schneider and Bud McBride opened the first Crow Valley Shop in 1959 in the historic 1866 cabin; the oldest structure on Orcas in its original location. Two generations of Schneider’s family including his two sisters Joyce Nigretto and the late Ole Coleman were raised there.

The cabin served as Schneider and McBride’s residence and shop where they made pottery recognized for its signature patterns and colors and its use of the Orcas Island clay that they hand dug and processed. Wind bells, pie plates and the no longer available Richard’s blue color were some of the distinctive pottery for which they were best known.

The cabin shop has retained many of both its earliest customers and its original construction. The old schoolhouse bell that was rung to alert Schneider’s mother of visitors to the shop is still outside.

Schneider and McBride retired in 1994, and the shop passed to the next generation of artists, their nephew Coleman and his partner Rivkin.

The old studio, still located below the cabin, continues to be used now for their decorated redware and other pottery. The shop has evolved into a gallery, which displays the work of other artists as well as that of Coleman and Rivkin. Each summer the old gardens and orchards surrounding the cabin are open for the Summer Show Series.

Even with the addition of a second shop in Eastsound the cabin, a “Must See” on Washington State’s Scenic Byways list, greets customers.

“I doubt the locals would ever let us close it! It’s become a regular visit for so many of them for so long… like part of their family,” Rivkin said. Call the shop at 376 4260 for additional information.