EVE DEISHER BERGNER

EVE DEISHER BERGNER

Eve Deisher Bergner passed away January 30, 2017, peacefully at home after a two-year journey battling cancer.

Eve was born in 1954 in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania to Alma Mae "Rocky" (Snyder) and John Loughran.

From an early age, Eve showed a love for the arts, which was cultivated with numerous trips to the Philadelphia Museum of Art.

Her father passed away when she was eleven years old. He wanted Eve to have an overseas education. So, still in her teens she and her mother traveled to England where Eve spent 1972-73 attending Epson School of Art and Design.

During that time, she traveled to Israel and participated in a month long archeological dig, which was a formative experience in her youth. She later went on to get a BFA in Studio/Art History from Virginia Commonwealth University and a MA in Adult and Higher Education at Western Washington University.

Following graduation from VCU, she worked at various arts related jobs, including gallery assistant at the Virginia Museum and later as a booking manager for Zero Moving Dance Company in Philadelphia.

In 1986 she took a job as an administrative assistant at the Fleisher Art Memorial, a community art center and school administered by the Philadelphia Museum of Art. It was there that she met her future husband, Lanny Bergner, who worked as the Memorial's gallery coordinator.

After dating for nearly eight years, they married in 1994, at which time they moved to Lanny's hometown of Anacortes.

Eve was a gifted and beloved teacher who taught studio art, design and art history at Skagit Valley College from 1995 up until shortly before her death. At SVC she received three Exceptional Faculty Awards during her twenty-year teaching career.

She was also a uniquely talented artist, and her drawings and mixed media fiber works were featured in many national exhibitions.

In recent years, she was in several exhibitions with her good friend Ann Reid. The last one was the 2016 exhibition "Here and There: Topographic Conversations with Morris Graves" at the Museum of Northwest Art, which was conceived and organized by Ann.

For that exhibition, she somehow managed to find the stamina to create a very large mixed media work, "Forest Moonlight," which hung in the museum's circular stairwell. That would be her last major work.

Eve took ballet classes for many years and had a keen interest in performance art, theater and modern dance all of which inspired many of her drawings and fiber constructions.

In her leisure time, she enjoyed going to art exhibitions, walking around Whistle Lake in the Anacortes Forest Lands and spending time with her chickens. She loved animals; and as her health began deteriorating, she would cherish her time sitting in a lawn chair surrounded by the wild birds, squirrels, chipmunks and rabbits that frequented the backyard. Most often this was while two of her six chickens cuddled on her lap.

She was a sweet and gentle person, who loved art and the natural world. She never complained about her illness and confronted her failing health with remarkable courage and grace.

All those who knew and loved her will dearly miss her.

Eve was an only child and was proceeded in death by her parents Alma Mae and John Loughran.

A special thank you to her Oncologist, Dr. Gjerset and all the wonderful nurses and staff at the Merle Cancer Care Center and to Island Hospital Home Health and to Hospice of the Northwest.

In lieu of flowers donations may be given to an arts organization of your choice.

Arrangements are in the care of Evans Funeral Chapel & Crematory, Inc., Anacortes, WA and the San Juan Islands.

To share a memory of Eve, please sign the online guest register at www.evanschapel.com