Olga Lownie is a Living Legacy Artist at the Burchfield Penney Art Center.
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Olga Lownie is a painter and educator in Western New York. For several years she ran MollyOlga Neighborhood Art Classes (now Locust Street Art) alongside founder Molly Bethel. Lownie, a Ukrainian refugee, settled in Buffalo with her parents following the end of World War II.[1] She attended Buffalo State College where she majored in Art Education. In 1961, during Lownie’s freshman year, the Art Education Department received a call from Molly Bethel, who was looking for assistance with running her neighborhood painting classes. Bethel, who was a resident of the Fruit Belt, began teaching neighborhood children in 1959 in her kitchen, bringing unprecedented access to the arts to the community. Due to the popularity of the classes she had to move the artmaking to St. Phillip’s Episcopal Church on Goodell Street, and needed help teaching the growing number of students. Buffalo State sent several students to complete their pre-student teaching with Bethel, but in the end, Lownie was so moved by the impact of Bethel’s class that she opted to stay.
Together, Bethel and Lownie oversaw the expansion of the program; they added clay classes as requested, and as their first students began to get older, created a separate class for teens and adults. In 1971, the pair moved the newly incorporated MollyOlga Neighborhood Art Classes to St. Boniface Convent on 138 Locust St., which has remained its permanent home. The three-story building is in the heart of the Fruit Belt, providing continued access to neighborhood students and their families. When St. Boniface downsized and the building went on sale in 1981, MollyOlga bought the building outright with the community’s donations and ongoing support. Ted Lownie, a noted local architect and Olga Lownie’s husband, designed and oversaw the renovation of the building.
Without the burden of a mortgage, MollyOlga continued to provide free access to classes, and expanded its offerings to include photography, ceramics and sculpture classes. Lownie continued to teach with MollyOlga until 1995.
In 1997, the program was formally renamed Locust Street Art Classes, and is still in operation today. Locust Street Art continues to be a staple in the community for arts access and inclusion. Students have been able to not only develop their artistry, but to exhibit in institutions throughout Buffalo, including El Museo, Hallwalls and the Burchfield Penney.
For more information on Locust Street Arts and upcoming classes, visit http://www.locuststreetart.org/.