Spotlight on Art

By Carolyn Henderson

The Wenaha Art Event features pastel landscape paintings of Ellensburg, Wash., artist Edna Bjorge starting August 25–September 18.

Her first major noncommissioned art piece was the wall of her parents' bedroom, which she painted as a mural with oil paints when she was five years old. She describes her mother as being "horrified," but her father, an artist, went out and purchased art supplies (especially paper) so that her creative instincts could be nourished.

That was back shortly after World War II. Bjorge has been painting ever since, and now focuses on pastel landscapes of the central Washington region. She is passionate about the landscape, because she feels that it is "disappearing at an alarming rate." Once it is developed, she says, it is never the same, and artwork may be the only evidence of what it used to be.