Wellsville Creative Arts Center
Wellsville is a small town in New York State 20 minutes from Alfred University. Wellsville Creative Arts Center is place with a number of things happening. In front there’s a coffee shop and pottery for sale. From there, there’s a small stage and sitting area where the center has open mic nights and other community events and gatherings. Next door is The Little Gem, an artisan store where local artists can sell their work. In the basement, there’s the ceramic studio where they teach classes and workshops. Off of that room there’s the resident studio spaces, dry material storage and clay storage.
Wellsville has three electric kilns and can fire up to cone 6. The AIR program is short term in length and the structure is flexible based on what the resident is looking for. They can have up to two residents at a time. There is an apartment space on the upper floor of the building that they are planning to make into resident housing. The living space needs renovations and is currently being occupied by Wellsville’s resident painter who also has a studio on the same floor as the apartment.
Resident responsibilities include contributing 10 hours per week to studio management, participation in their community of teachers and students, be available to interact with other studio members and willingness to become an integral part of their community. In exchange, Wellsville offers free firing, semi-private personal studio space, employee discounts on clay and supplies and paid teaching opportunities. The resident workspace is large with a ton of sturdy storage shelves. The workspace is in the basement so it’s a little cave like, but it is well lit and air is clean. The bathroom is also really cool and reminds me of the bathrooms at Kohler Art Center.
Residents can also exhibit and sell work in the connected gallery. The Wellsville community was described to me as a group made up of “people who see what needs to be done and do it.” Wellsville Creative Arts Center wears a lot of hats and stretches in a few different directions. This opens up the AIR program to be more flexible then others and can adjust to individual residents.
