Sculptures by Hannah Alex-Glasser and acrylic/watercolor paintings by James Hardman will be on exhibit in the Orcas Center main gallery throughout July. The show will open with an artists’ reception Friday, June 27, from 5:30 to 7 p.m. in the Madrona Room.

Alex-Glasser first showed her work at the Center in 2005. For Hardman, a familiar Northwest artist whose distinctive, meticulously constructed landscapes are displayed at the James Hardman Gallery at Olga, this is his first local museum show in over a decade.

The pair’s decision to collaborate on the show was made because of similarities of subject-matter interest –both express a deep connection with nature – and, perhaps as important, because of very similar ways of working, each approaching the creative process in a slow, methodical manner they characterize as “meditative and spiritual.”

Also, for both, music has played an important part in their lives and influenced their visual art. Alex-Glasser’s 25-year professional career in ballet and contemporary dance has, she believes, provided the base for her work in sculpture. Hardman has composed extensively for choral and instrumental ensembles and has produced eight albums of original solo instrumental music. In his music as well as his painting, “each piece teaches me something; and in the end it is a kind of revelation.”

Roughly two dozen pieces will comprise the show. Alex-Glasser’s sculptures are hand-glazed, unglazed and pit-fired. (“I am conscious that the medium in my hands is the earth itself.”) Hardman will exhibit current examples of his signature landscapes, as well as works that take him in a new direction, a change he attributes to the current collaborative effort.