Ohr Fest 2019 is fast approaching! Admission is free but those participating in the beer tasting will need to purchase a wristband. With a wristband, donors receive unlimited 3 oz. taster pours. VIP level wristbands also come with our annual limited-edition beer stein made right here in our City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics by Ceramics Director Charlie Mabry. VIP purchasers will also enjoy three full pours of beers of their choice during the festival along with their taster pours. The limited-edition beer steins can be seen in the new Ohr Fest promotional video below.

The festival will offer a diverse array of arts and craft vendors, craft beer tents, a homebrewers’ competition, live music, a ceramics throw-down between the coast’s finest potters, a whacky ceramics-based performance by the Mad Potter of Bay St. Louis Steve Barney, and some of the Southeast’s most sought after food trucks—all on the beautiful Biloxi Town Green.

The cost of admission is free, but access to the beer tents will require purchasing an armband:

General Admission armbands: $35
Buyers will receive unlimited 3 oz. beer pours.

VIP armbands: $60
Buyers will receive a commemorative ceramic beer stein(a $40 value)
Three full 16 oz. pours.
Unlimited 3 oz. pours.

*Only 100 VIP armbands will be available for purchase.

This year’s festival thanks Premier sponsors TD Ameritrade and the City of Biloxi. Support also provided by Coca-Cola, F.E.B. Distributing, The Harrison County Board of Supervisors, Lazy Magnolia Brewery, The Mississippi Arts Commission, Mitchell Distributing, and Yeastie Beastie Homebrew Supplies. Contact community@georgeohr.org to get involved as a vendor or sponsor.

Get your wristbands now and join us on the Biloxi Town Green on October 5th from 11 am to 8 pm!

The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art has received a grant from Wells Fargo to continue a new program that promotes art literacy in South Mississippi schools.

“The World Through My Eyes” began this year as a collaborative project between the museum and school districts in Hancock, Harrison, and Jackson counties in South Mississippi. It brings professional artists into a participating classroom to guide the creation of student artwork and then installs student artwork as a three-month exhibit at the museum.

The goal of “The World Through My Eyes” is to expose school children to the arts and invite them to the museum through experiential art education. The program is open to classrooms from kindergarten through 12th grades and gives teachers and students the tools to connect fields of study to the arts.

Funding from Wells Fargo allows this program to expand and benefit more students around the Mississippi Gulf Coast. This grant will help to cover the costs of art supplies, artist compensation and installation for the exhibit.

During the first collaboration, artists Rebecca Alston and Allison Stewart worked with 20 fourth- and fifth-grade gifted students from West Wortham Elementary and Middle School. The artists and students created work that explored the importance of protecting and valuing their local environment on land and in the sea.

The first exhibit for “The World Through My Eyes” opened May 17 and remains on view.

Zach Harris’s Opening Reception was this Thursday, August 1st, and drew a crowd of around 100 people. The gathering was planned as a celebration of Harris’s sculptures as they interact with the museum’s Frank Gehry-designed-buildings and the Live Oaks on the campus. Harris was present to speak with museum members and visitors about the work. Harris’s artist statement speaks of his intentions with the body of work:

Inorganic Accoutrements

Zachary Harris was born and resides in Ocean Springs, Mississippi. He received a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Sculpture from Mississippi State University in 2011 and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the University of Georgia in 2018. In 2012, Harris was awarded a commission by Jackson County for a work to be permanently placed on the campus of the Jackson County General Services Complex in Pascagoula, MS.

Harris has a passion for framing his influence of nature and for the well-designed. He views his sculptures as archetypes in choreographed space. His works project themselves form the ground with a force-like entelechy. Etching themselves into the presence of the viewer. His background includes dabbling in subjects of land conservation, environmental system design specific to park design, watershed management systems, landscape architecture, and Design Thinking.

Using his affinity for tectonics, Harris invites participants and viewers to experience a familiar space in a new way. He believes his objects to enhance a view while more importantly enhancing the experience of a viewer.

The works are less about their title or what he was thinking and are more about projecting an opportunity for a viewer to foster an interior dialogue of which his motives become constructively and divergently separate from the artist and his vision for the viewer. It is here that Harris manipulates dense inert materials to balance with environment freeing them from finite definition.

As with all opening receptions at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art, admission was free for every exhibit on view during the event. Wine and light hors d’oeuvres were served. A welcome new addition to the event was Makin’ Groceries, a new local catering service. They provided shrimp tacos with yum yum slaw that were an incredible hit, selling out just before the event concluded. Thank you to everyone that came, and be sure to mark the next opening reception on your calendar. More info on new exhibits is coming later this month!

SUMMER MEMBERSHIP DRIVE Going on NOW!

Become a member or renew your membership to the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art during July or August and receive a 20% discount on all membership levels.

6 Great Reasons to Become a  Member of The Mad Potter Society:

• Invitations to all exhibition openings and events.
• Free admission to our Annual Member Party. Become a member before or during our July 12th  “Mad Potter Block Party”  and you’ll get all-you-can-eat BBQ from 4 pm – 8 pm during our Membership Pig Roast.
• A subscription to the museum e-newsletter (weekly on Tuesdays).
• A subscription to the quarterly museum magazine (due to launch in 2020).
• 10% discount on all museum store purchases, classes and workshops, and event rentals on the museum campus.
• 50% off all guest admissions.

Your support as an OOMA Mad Potter Society member helps to ensure that this amazing museum will remain a vital source of inspiration for generations to come as well as a continuing source of pride for all Gulf Coast residents. Purchase a membership today and become a Benefact-Ohr of the arts!

The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art will celebrate the 162nd birthday of its namesake George E. Ohr with free general admission on Friday, July 12, 2019 from 10 am to 5 pm. Nicknamed the “Mad Potter of Biloxi,” Ohr’s legacy lives on 100 years after his passing in the wild and wacky STEAMpunk Pottery Project performance by Bay St. Louis artist Steve Barney. Featuring “The World’s Most Amazing Pottery Machine,” Barney will hoist himself in the air and throw pots upside down. Moreover, Steve will use his head to mold and shape clay vessels, designed to inspire students and integrate art with STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Enjoy free museum admission, cake, refreshments, food trucks, and exciting interactive art demonstrations and activities with Steve all day.

Exhibitions on view during the event will be Visionary Bayou Technician by Steve Shepard in the IP Casino Resort Spa Exhibitions Gallery and Southern Witness by John Barnes in the Beau Rivage Casino Gallery of African American Art.

Steve Shepard’s Visionary Bayou Technician, in the words of the artist, “speak(s) a visionary language of deep ecology inspired by the natural history of the northern Gulf of Mexico and its disintegration at the hands of developers investing in sprawling overpopulation and exploitation.” The artist includes among his influences the art of Walter Anderson, the Post-Impressionists, and the Chicago Imagists. Steve Shepard’s education includes a BFA from the University of South Alabama in 1977 and a summer at the Santa Fe Workshops of Contemporary Art in 1976.

The works collected in Southern Witness by John Barnes are painted wooden assemblages inspired by the historic cycle of race-positioning in relation to power and servitude in the contemporary South. The works use a variety of surfaces from lush, colorfully painted surfaces to heavily-grained bare plywood. John Barnes received his MFA in Sculpture from The Memphis College of Art in 1999. He now works out of New Orleans and is currently an artist-in-residence at the Joan Mitchell Center.

Become a member on Ohr’s Birthday and stick around for our Mad Potter Block Party member appreciation event presented by O’Keefe Financial Services from 4 pm to 8 pm. Non-member admission is $10 and we’ll have an appearance by George Ohr, a BBQ including two roasted pigs, and fun for all!