Comeback Coast

Biloxi's Ohr-O'Keefe Museum opens this weekend, signaling the Mississippi Gulf Coast is alive and well - and ready for holiday travelers. by Erin Z. Bass Five years after Hurricane Katrina, Mississippi’s Gulf Coast is still busy rebuilding and re-inventing itself, and there’s no better time than now to plan a trip to view its progress. With the much-anticipated opening of the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum of Art this weekend, locals and travelers will have the opportunity to visit a Frank Gehry-designed space that celebrates the self-proclaimed “Mad Potter of Biloxi” on Beach Boulevard. Joining new hotels, plush casino spas, thriving downtowns, historic homes and restaurants that have stood the test of time, the Ohr-O’Keefe Museum is just another reason why the Mississippi Gulf Coast is making a comeback and here to stay. In 1994, a group of Mississippi citizens opened the George Ohr Arts and Cultural Center. Ohr was born in Biloxi in 1857 and studied to be a potter in New Orleans, exhibiting his work at the 1884 World’s Fair. Having created more than 10,000 pots in his lifetime, Ohr’s style was described as abstract and without perfection; his pots are thin with metallic glazes and twisted, pinched shapes. Much of his clay