Winner of a 2025 Public Media Award for Visual Arts

and a 2025 Virginia Association of Broadcasters Award for Best Human Interest Series

Artistic Encounters -Meet the Artist essentially takes the artist from behind the camera and welcomes them into the Blue Ridge PBS studio. This provides our arts loving audience the opportunity to meet the featured artist while they introduce their works one on one. Specially curated pieces from their collection will be on display during the reception and for several weeks afterwards with many available to take home by making a donation to Blue Ridge PBS. Additionally, each artist will donate one piece to Blue Ridge PBS which will then be auctioned the night of the artist’s reception. Proceeds benefit the artist and Blue Ridge PBS so it may continue its mission of enriching people’s lives by providing educational, informational, and cultural programming that fills a unique role as a positive and lifelong resource for the communities we serve.

Our Featured Artist: Greg Osterhaus

Born in Illinois in 1963, Greg Osterhaus discovered his interest in art at an early age. As a child he received great encouragement from one of his teachers who took an interest in his artistic enthusiasm and drawing abilities. His parents also enrolled him in private art classes where he received valuable academic instruction. Greg moved from Schenectady, NY to Roanoke, Virginia when he was 12 years old and has lived there ever since. Greg attended Virginia Tech as a student of Architecture where he spent some time taking art and literature classes and eventually decided to switch his major to Fine Art with a graphic arts focus. After graduating with a BA Fine Art in 1985, Greg worked for six years with an architecture firm as a graphic artist and photographer. He then tried a number of different jobs, always painting in his spare time, progressing from 'moody' character studies of figures, to landscape paintings in watercolor, oil and pastel. In time, Greg began to frequent local galleries where he noticed works by a number of landscape painters working in oils. It was then that he began to understand what an artist could do with the landscape motif and also realized the possibility of making a living in this field.

Greg's paintings are in many corporate and private collections across the US. He is always eager to proceed to the next canvas, to begin new work, to experiment, and to pursue a new creative agenda for himself. Greg is married with three children.