Patience is a requirement for budding artists eager to join Penn Cove Gallery in Coupeville.

Even those who make it through a rigorous screening process must wait for an opening.

And, sometimes, that can take a year or more.

“People just don’t leave,” painter Judy Skinner said with a hint of exaggeration. “We all like it here.”

A member since 2001, Skinner represents somewhat of the norm at the cooperative gallery, where more than half of the 27 members have been affiliated for roughly a decade or more.

This fall, the group is celebrating its 20th anniversary as the longest continuously operating cooperative art gallery on Whidbey Island.

And just as its name suggests, the root of success is tied to the members’ cooperative spirit.

“For the eight years I’ve been here, everybody just works together,” said abstract artist Richard Nash. “Even when there’s a difference, everyone seems to work through it with a very tolerant type of attitude. We always manage to get through things and everybody shares.”

As a cooperative gallery, each artist is part business owner, sharing in expenses, rent, maintenance and spending a day or two a month working onsite.

The gallery, located at 9 NW Front St., is open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day of the year with only three exceptions: Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day.

“I’ve been a member of two other cooperatives on the island,” said M. Denis Hill, a scenic photographer from Coupeville who specializes in panoramas. “Personally, my stuff sells better here than any other place.

“I think the Front Street shopping district is a solid location. We get really good traffic in Coupeville. It’s a well-run organization in a way that everybody pitches in. And there’s a little more of a family feel to this. We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“I think people here have respect for each other and their work,” oil painter Rainy Lindell said.

The gallery has always been located on Front Street and has been the only tenant in the current space it moved into in 2000 when the building was brand new.

Painters Margaret Livermore and Lucinda Adams and jewelry-maker Akemi Walker are the only artists who’ve been a part of the gallery for all 20 years.

Other art galleries have come and gone in Coupeville, but Penn Cove Gallery has stood the test of time.

Sales in 2013 marked one of the best years in the gallery’s history and 2014 might be even better, Hill said.

“I think we’re in a great location,” Livermore said. “We’re very visible on Front Street. We’re in a cute little tourist town. I think those are the major reasons that we do so well. And we do have great artists.”

Penn Cove, made up of only Whidbey Island artists, is one of four cooperative art galleries on the island, joining Garry Oak Gallery in Oak Harbor (opened in 2008), Artworks Gallery in Greenbank (2005) and Whidbey Art Gallery in Langley (1992).

The Whidbey Art Gallery, formerly the Artists’ Cooperative Gallery, is older than Penn Cove but closed for two and a half years before re-opening at a new location in Langley in 2011.

While the Whidbey Art Gallery has showcased the works of more than 155 local artists over the years, Hill guesses that Penn Cove Gallery has had roughly half that number of members in 20 years.

“We’re pretty stable,” he said.

Trying to break into the Penn Cove Gallery artist lineup is much like applying for a job. A screening committee looks over an artist’s work, biography and artist statement.

If the committee likes what it sees, the applicant is invited to a group interview session attended by all Penn Cove Gallery artists who can make it.

Ultimately, a group vote involving all members takes place. And if that artist is accepted, his or her name is put into a queue awaiting an opening.

An opening often involves the type of media that the gallery is seeking.

“All artists who do make it through the screening process realize they don’t necessarily go into the gallery in the order in which they applied,” Nash said. “We take the artist that best fills the needs of the vacancy.”

A celebration of Penn Cove Gallery’s 20-year anniversary will take place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 1 at the Coupeville Recreation Hall.

Art from both past and present Penn Cove Gallery members will be on display while a handful of artists will demonstrate their work, including block printer Linnane Armstrong, weaver Marcy Johnson and metal jewelry maker Mary Ellen O’Connor.

The gathering also will serve as a time to reflect on the successes and challenges during 20 years, including the losses of members who have passed such as Jan Holmes, Harry Rich, Martha Bund and Betty Rayle.