Family Artist’s Work Displayed at Orcas Island Chamber Music Festival

Artwork by Juanita Storch will be on display during the Chamber Music Festival

By Andrea Hendrick

An exhibit in the Madrona Room of the Orcas Center this month connects fine paintings with the family responsible for bringing the outstanding music of the Chamber Music Festival. Juanita Storch was a well-known painter in Sonoma County, California – as well as Festival Director Aloysia Friedmann’s grandmother and Laila Storch’s mother. They are lending a collection of her paintings to the Center for the Fourteenth Anniversary of the Orcas Chamber Music Festival.

Juanita painted the Rincon Valley as it was from the 1920’s through the 1950’s – covered with flowering orchards and golden fields. In 1925 she won 1st prize in a painting competition but was never awarded the $15 prize. In 1991, when the painting was reproduced as a poster for the Luther Burbank House and Garden in Santa Rosa, it was noticed that the Chamber of Commerce had never sent a check. At a dinner honoring the agricultural community the new poster was revealed and a check was awarded to Aloysia Storch Friedmann for $111.90 – an estimate of the 1991 value of $15 in 1925. The poster is part of the current exhibit –  a visual feast  particularly for those who have lived or traveled through Northern California.