Officials cut the ribbon for the opening of Pearl City Clay House (January 24, 2023)

Infinity Performing and Visual Art‘s new venture, Pearl City Clay House, held a ribbon cutting ceremony Tuesday.

Infinity Executive Director Shane Hawkins said while they offer youth programming, they often received requests to offer programming for adults, “For a long-term sustainability plan, Infinity needs to bring in more funds that aren’t grant-based or fundraising. So we thought, why not start something for adults and for families to do together that will help benefit the youth program at Infinity? So, thus the idea for Pearl City Clay House. We’ve had excellent support from funders, both federal, local, and regional, so there’s just a lot of people that went into making this a success.”

Clay House Program Director Debra Eck said a lot of different activities are available at the facility, “Starting from paint your own pottery, and going all the way up to making and firing your own pottery. We also offer workshops in contemporary crafts like felting, or embroidery, or bookbinding, or modern mending.”

Eck said there also is a gallery space that can be rented out for events that includes a kitchen and its own restrooms.

She added they will be doing a special craft for Doors Open this Saturday, January 28 where people can paint a tile or make their own clay fortune cookie.

Pearl City Clay House is located at 220 East Second Street.

For more information, visit pearlcityclayhouse.org

EDITOR’S NOTE: As a point of transparency and disclosure to our audience, Infinity Performing and Visual Arts is a corporate underwriter for WRFA and has provided a financial contribution for the general operations of the station within the past year. Funding we receive for General Operations is not used to fund our coverage of local news in the community. That is only made possible through a Community Service Grant from the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. 

We spoke with local musicians about a fundraiser being held to benefit Ron Graham, who founded Infinity Performing Arts.

The fundraiser, Ronnie’s Way 5k, is in honor of Ron Graham who has been diagnosed with stage-four gastroesophageal cancer and has recently started treatment.

Musician and music teacher Mark Alpaugh describes Ron as a “galvanizing force,” especially when it came to the creation of the Infinity Arts Program at Washington Middle School, “Ron is one these people that they say, ‘Ron’s never met a stranger.’ You know, he seems to know everybody and is connected. So he would set up these meetings with my department head and with my principal at school to see if this was all legit, that we could do this in fact under the umbrella of the Jamestown Public Schools, and would that be okay to do after hours.”

Alpaugh said Ron Graham then was able to find a space in downtown Jamestown on East Third Street for the Infinity program, and it grew from there.

He said one of Ron’s biggest legacies with the Infinity program is that he was able to cross borders, “He was able to find kids from different schools, from different age groups, and from different ethnicities, genders, the whole thing, and bring them all together under one umbrella, which is music.”

Musician and teacher Steve Davis credited Ron with facilitating his and other’s growth as musicians, “Introducing me to so many of the upper echelon musicians in the area and bringing other professional musicians, international touring musicians.. he brought them to Jamestown to work with us and took our level of musicianship, took it through the roof. And just the experiences and opportunities we would have never have experienced without him.”

The event Saturday at Jackson-Taylor Park will start at 10:00 a.m. with a 5K run, followed by a Hot Shots Basketball tournament as well as a community walk at 11:00 a.m.

Live music is part of the day, too, with Steve Davis and Friends starting at 10:30 a.m., “Jeremy Bunce will be playing guitar. Daniel Witherspoon will be playing some drums. Rahsaan Graham, Ron’s son, will be playing some percussion. Marla Harris will be coming down to sing some songs.”

The link to register for the “Ronnie’s Way” event is available here: https://runsignup.com/Race/NY/Jamestown/Ronnie

According to Joni Blackman of the Fenton History Center, Doors Open is designed to give area residents a look into our local attractions, with free admission for the day to demonstrate the many tremendous tourism opportunities right here in our own backyard.

More from Joni Blackman, along with Justin Hanft (Jamestown Chamber) and Lynn Warner (Reg Lenna Center for the Arts) is available in the above interview.

Locations participating this year are:  Audubon Center and Sanctuary, Busti Historical Society and Grist Mill, Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame, Fenton History Center, Gateway Train Station, Infinity Performing Arts, Jamestown Savings Bank Arena, Lucille Ball Little Theatre, Lucille M. Wright Air Museum, Lucy-Desi Center for Comedy, Prendergast Library, Reg Lenna Center for the Arts, Robert H. Jackson Center, and Roger Tory Peterson Institute for Natural History.

Many of the participating venues will offer specials in their gift shops or prize drawings, and local businesses and restaurants will offer Doors Open specials as well.

The event is  Sponsored by the Jamestown Community Chamber of Commerce and Jamestown Up Close.

Sponsored by the Jamestown Community Chamber of Commerce, Doors Open has grown substantially since it first began.  Locations participating this year are:

• Audubon Center and Sanctuary
• Chautauqua Sports Hall of Fame
• Fenton History Center
• Gateway Train Station
• Infinity Performing Arts
• Jamestown Savings Bank Arena
• Lucille Ball Little Theatre
• Lucy-Desi Center for Comedy
• Prendergast Library
• Reg Lenna Center for the Arts
• Robert H. Jackson Center
• Roger Tory Peterson Institute for Natural History.

Many of the participating venues will offer specials in their gift shops or prize drawings, and local businesses and restaurants will offer Doors Open specials as well.  Watch for more details to come, but save the date – January 18 for Doors Open Jamestown!