Artists open their doors during the Studio Tour

Published 1:30 am Monday, June 1, 2026

By Marieke Danniau

Journal contributor

Just before island summer comes into full swing, the San Juan Islands Artists are holding the 35th annual Studio Tour on June 6 and 7 from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. For the first time, the tour is expanding to include several galleries in town alongside other studios. Luminous Gallery | Studio, Friday Harbor Atelier, and Windy Gallery and Studios will be the first stops.

Hosting 26 stops with 68 artists among them, including founding members as well as new artists, the Studio Tour is an opportunity not only to get a peek at various workspaces of different artistic trades, but also to talk with artists, experience the quirky essence of the island hidden amongst the usual tourist hotspots, take in a lot of gorgeous, diverse and unique art, and maybe take some home.

Returning to the tour in a new space is Dana Alkebu-Lan, owner of Luminous Gallery | Studio. She originally opened the gallery with fellow artist Lisa Lamoureux, who moved to her own studio, #17 on the tour. Alkebu-Lan had the desire to curate a creative space that functioned to sell and make art, and that felt more lived-in than a typical gallery experience. “It took a year or so for us to get settled.”

Alkebu-Lan said about moving to the island: “I’ve always loved interior design as well, so when we moved up here, the interior design was kind of my outlet of getting us settled into our home.”

Alkebu-Lan carried that love of design into Luminous Gallery, which now serves as a venue for art classes, private events as well as her art studio. Alkebu-Lan picked up weaving while on a road trip and needed a creative outlet. She bought yarn in the colors of the landscape she was traveling, and has continued to make woven art in the colors of the natural world around her since then. Alkebu-Lan’s artistic touch can be seen just as much in the cultivation of her gallery space as in her weavings, the latter complementing and elevating the former.

Friday Harbor Atelier is the third stop on the tour and is owned by artist Debbie Daniels and her husband. Making art for most of her life, Daniels saw the opportunity left by the closing of West Marine in the space that Friday Harbor Atelier now occupies. “I told my husband, what if we turned it into an art center where people could come and paint, we could do classes, you know, have a gallery where people can show their work,” Daniels said. “It makes me so happy because not only does it give me a place to show my work and to be away from home to get the work done, but it provides that for everyone else that’s there.” Daniels specializes in realistic oil paintings, inspired by the small moments of beauty around her. She especially loves to paint water, making it appear as lifelike and dynamic as she can, utilizing her familiarity with the subject, skilled knowledge of her medium, and attention to minute details.

The second stop on the Studio Tour is Windy Gallery and Studios. About 10 years ago, Windy Gallery’s owner, April Randall, moved to the islands with her partner. Randall primarily makes detailed watercolor paintings focusing on island nature. “I probably went from being a little bit more abstract before moving here to much more representational after moving here, which I think is only a little natural,” Randall said about her art and their move to the islands. Needing a space more suited to a large amount of artistic materials than the boat where Randall and her partner live, Randall moved her working space onto land and opened Windy Gallery. The gallery is a space both to sell local art and to make it. “I looked around in town, and all the studios at the time were filled. So, you know, I said, well, if that’s the case, then there’s probably room for more studios, which was definitely much more in my mind. Like, you know, I wanted to be around other working artists and have that kind of creative energy around me,” Randall explained. Randall hosts her studio in the building as well as those of artists Jaime Ellsworth, Aimee Dieterle and Abigail Morris, whose work can be seen on the tour.

Windy Gallery not only sells the work of its own resident artists but also artists around the island, including the pottery of Lauren Jawer, a ceramicist returning to the tour this year as a guest in BJ and Matt Dollahite’s studio (studio #14 on the tour). Jawer originally started creating pottery when she was working at Pelindaba Lavender farm, and saw that they didn’t have soap dishes for the soaps they were selling. Jawer developed the relief technique that she uses in the pieces she makes now, by pressing lavender into clay to create a mold for pottery, which would then feature a 3D relief of the flower. When Pelindaba went out of business, Jawer transitioned to more personal work and now hunts the island for pieces of wildlife to decorate her pottery with.

Information about the participating artists, a map of all the stops and a multipage guidebook for the tour can be found at www.sanjuanislandartists.com.