By Barbara Johnson Ross, Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art

At an Ohr-O’Keefe Museum Studio Ohr workshop on February 9, 2013, students used the printmaking art of linocut to create one-of-a-kind 4” x 6” Valentine cards that could be mailed, framed or given as gifts.  Linocut skills can be used to transfer designs to fabric, create wrapping paper, or make larger artworks.

Ohr-O’Keefe Museum volunteer Tana Bradley with her linocut Valentine card

On March 9, 2013, a book signing was held at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum’s Mississippi Sound Welcome Center.   I Am Because We Are: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb is a stunning collection of photographs taken by Betty Press while she lived and traveled in Africa. The book features 125 photographs paired with African proverbs compiled by Annetta Miller, an American born in Tanzania and living in East Africa most of her life.

Young Senegalese Women, Dakar, Senegal, 1988From I Am Because We Are: African Wisdom in Image and Proverb by Betty Press

Betty Press signed books at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art Welcome Center

The Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art held a Studio Ohr event on Saturday, March 9, 2013.   Last year’s Pysanky egg decorating workshop was so popular that the talented members of St. Patrick’s Episcopal Church in Long Beach, Mississippi returned for two workshops this year.  Pysanky is the traditional Ukrainian folk art of decorating eggs using a wax-resist, or batik, method. Once only made at Easter, Ukrainian Easter eggs are now made year all over the world.  Designs are “written” on the eggs with beeswax to protect the covered areas from the dye that is applied. By repeating this process with various dye colors, the result is a multi-colored pattern.  When the wax is removed, colors that were covered up at each stage of decoration are revealed.

Students work on Pysanky egg designs in the City of Biloxi Center for Ceramics

A sampling of the Pysanky eggs that were made at the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art