The building at 135 North Main Street in Wellsville has always housed a treasure. In 1900 A E Brandon started a store and placed, in the basement, pipe threader that served farmers, mechanics and homeowners for over 100 years. Brandon's store changed and grew into the beloved Carter Hardware selling rope, paint, guns, nails and you-name-it until November 2003 when it passed from oldest hardware store in New York to empty building.

The building gave Andy Glanzman an idea and now Joe Lewis (Dean of Alfred's School of Art and Design) says it's "a miracle on Main Street." It's a string attached to high flying ideas that may well pull little Wellsville up in status beyond what anyone else might have dreamed possible.

As Carter Hardware, the building housed a can do, can find, can fix attitude from the front desk to the upstairs custom window shade room. That sense of comfort, confidence and customer service oozed into the wood floors, the tin ceilings and the brick walls and it's there still. Now service stands on easels, spins on potter's wheels and walks the floors in the person of Marshal Green, executive director of the Wellsville Creative Arts Center and his assistant, Delaney Persons.

Classes at the WCAC have started and their success is measured in the smiles on student faces. Orange and yellow buckets with black lettered names line the shelves in the throwing room. (Throwing is the glory sport of ceramics when the thin walls of clay rise against gravity between skilled fingers.) Marsha Van Vlack and Green taught clay classes this week and students claimed shelf space for tools and pots.

Wizner Cook signed up for drawing, not clay. Cook studied ceramics at Alfred University some time ago and now, at 92, is proud to say he was the first official drawing student. He waited a long time for that class. He started "hanging out" in the building when construction began and spent months cheering on the project and passing out good will with every crease in his smile.

On Saturday night, Virginia and Albert Vossler filled the background with the color of their string duet while a crowd toured, signed onto membership in the community and examined the transformation of the huge old building.

They found wine and cheese, conversation and connections and room to work and grow. If coffee is your cup of tea, stop by any day and sit with cake and cappuccino, latte or espresso or pick up a grab and go lunch. The coffee shop will be open Monday-Saturday. Manager, Brian Endza, calls the coffee shop the face of the WCAC. He said that you'll find food, drinks and free wireless Internet service all day, every day and that on Saturday nights there will be live music. Check the website
(www.wellsvillecreativeartscenter.com) or call (585 593 3000) for specifics and tickets.

Saturday, October 14, mid way through the annual Allegany Artisan Studio Tour, the WCAC will host its first night of live music with Kris Kehr and Julie Edlow, an acoustic duo slated to play at 8 p.m. But Brian sees the future with live entertainment every night. He has contacts out for old movie night, poetry readings, Shakespearian performances, original song writer's night, and whatever else people bring or ask for.

The website has information on classes, people and events
(www.wellsvillecreativeartscenter.com) or you can call 585 593 3000 and talk with Marshall or Delaney. Better yet, stop in and get your coffee of choice and saunter around the building to find your creative niche.