JESS MALLOY
Walking around Imagine That Art Studio, tucked away in Lockport, New York’s industrial district, one has the sense of an aliveness all around. The shelves around the expansive warehouse space hold untold numbers of ceramic figures, spanning all manner of genre. Over here we have the gnomes, and over here we have the angels. Here, the butterflies, and here, the snails.
In this corner we have the plates and bowls, and in this one the Christmas trees. This room has the paint supplies, and this room is where group classes are held. This room is adorned with more than a dozen canvas works, and back here is Penelope, the pottery kiln.
Some of the ceramics also have names. Jake the Snake, Chloe the Catacorn.
“When I didn’t have as big of a back room space, there’d be all these boxes that had to be unpacked,” owner Jess Malloy said. “And I’d come in and go, ‘Guys, look, you couldn’t just unpack yourselves? Like a whole Toy Story ceramic exhibition would be like, real helpful.’ But sadly, I have not gotten the ceramics to put themselves away or fire themselves,” she laughed.
‘Guys, look, you couldn’t just unpack yourselves? Like a whole Toy Story ceramic exhibition would be like, real helpful.’
Jess is a maximalist in her art, working in several mediums and excelling in all of them. Right now she’s diving deep into pottery, having recently acquired a large pile of books that span the spectrum of the discipline’s techniques. She’s been teaching hand building pottery classes for the last year, and plans to expand to teaching on the wheel. A mini pottery wheel, to be precise.
“I don’t have room or space for all of the massive pottery wheels. But I figure I can give people the experience of doing something small,” Jess explained. Plus, tiny pots and such? So cute.
“Maybe you’re not ready for the whole thing, what you see in the movies with the wheel and everything. But being able to have your hands on it, on a little one…it’s very accessible,” she said.
Imagine That’s offerings are a mix of classes and walk-in projects, including acrylic paint ceramics, faux stained glass, and wood door hangers. Jess will soon have her jewelry bar up and running as well. “It’s a mixture of a lot of different things,” she said.
Jess also teaches a weekly paint class focused on the techniques of artist Bob Ross, whom she is certified to teach. The classes are about four hours long, and at the end you will have produced a canvas landscape of happy little trees and mountains and rivers in the style of the late, great Ross.
Jess completed three weeks of training in 2024 under Ross’s successor Nicholas Hankins in order to become certified to teach the techniques. “Otherwise it’s one thousand percent illegal to teach his paintings,” she said. The first week of training took place in one of the houses where Ross had filmed his television art show, in Muncie, Indiana. From there Jess had to wait 2 weeks to see if she was approved to continue the second and third week of training, which would not pick up again until late August/early September. “They’ll only let you complete the second and third week if you are considered good enough,” she explained.
They’ll only let you complete the second and third week if you are considered good enough.
She was officially certified in September 2024, and has been teaching ever since. She’s even developed her own landscapes in the technique, including one featuring Niagara Falls, and one featuring a lightning storm, two things Ross never painted.
Along with the rest of the February classes she’s offering a Bob Ross paint class to celebrate Valentine’s Day – registration is open at the website with limited spots remaining.
After graduating from Newfane High School in 1999, Jess began her professional art career at SUNY Niagara, receiving an associate’s degree in fine arts, and from there her bachelor’s and master’s degrees in art education at Buffalo State University, with a break in between to teach art in North Carolina.
After receiving her master’s, Jess found that the region lacked teaching jobs so got a 9-5 in medical billing for a few years before starting her family. In 2015, when her youngest son was 6 months old, Jess started her paint night business. “I used to travel around to restaurants and wineries and do step-by-step acrylic canvases. I still do that here sometimes as classes,” she said.
After running her solo enterprise for 3 and a half years, Jess found herself with an opportunity to open a brick-and-mortar on Main Street in Olcott, New York. What was meant to be a summer business lasted the next 4 years, all the way through a global pandemic, until 2021.
that’s how I made it through that insanity of being closed for 6 months and still having to pay rent.
“We did lots of take-home kits. And that’s how I made it through that insanity of being closed for 6 months and still having to pay rent,” she said. She continues to offer the take-home kits, which proved to be a hit during shut down. “It really is a great thing to give people as a gift or to just be able to sit home and paint in your pajamas,” she laughed.
In 2021 she happened upon another opportunity back in her hometown of Newfane, New York, and moved the studio to the town square, where she remained for the next 2 and half years.
In 2024 she found yet another opportunity, this time on Michigan St in Lockport, and so another move was planned. This past October she was offered a bigger part of the Lockport building, which she eagerly accepted and moved, yet again. “And so I will no longer move,” she laughed.
The building comes with its own stories, having been a cookie and biscuit factory in the 1960s, then a bottling company, then the Buffalo Forge Company, which made machines.
Now full of art and things that may or may not come alive at night, it continues to stand strong in a quiet part of town, off in its own stretch of time and space. “It’s been a lot of different things, but it’s a cool space,” she said.
Only 9 days after opening the Lockport location, Jess took a step and nearly collapsed – her whole right leg was giving out on her. “And I was like, well, what the crap? I have to work,” she said. She borrowed a wheelchair from a family member and continued to get her new space into shape. That’s when she realized how accessible the place was; that had always been a value prop for her, but now that she was experiencing the difference between accessible vs. non-accessible public spaces first hand, the point was truly driven home.
It was very frustrating to me to go to one of my favorite places like a craft store and have it be so aggravating to get around.
“It was very frustrating to me to go to one of my favorite places like a craft store and have it be so aggravating to get around,” she said.
She consulted with an orthopedic doctor at the practice where she had received a cortisone shot in her knee a few weeks back, and they told her she was being dramatic. Things continued to decline.
When she was quite literally two days from death, it was discovered she had sepsis, a condition that may result when a bacterial infection develops and enters the bloodstream. Jess was rushed into surgery on that same knee where it was determined the infection had developed, and now walks with a cane.
This brush with death led Jess to live her art even bigger than before, however. “When I didn’t die from sepsis, I said, ‘I’m going to learn how to paint like Bob Ross. I’m going to buy myself a kiln,’” she said. “Because why not go massively into debt if you’re not going to die, right?”
When I didn’t die from sepsis, I said, ‘I’m going to learn how to paint like Bob Ross. I’m going to buy myself a kiln.’
Imagine That regularly hosts special needs groups in which many of the members have varying degrees of accessibility needs, and Jess knows that she herself will have accessibility needs for maybe a long while, too. “It’s absolutely 100 percent necessary that everybody is able to get through the entire space,” she said.
Jess’s studio is for everyone of all ages and artistic abilities. There’s a space for folks with sensory issues, a small room tucked away from all of the hub-bub of the main space. Kids are encouraged to join their parents for the Bob Ross paint classes. People celebrating a birthday or looking for a non-traditional place to hold a bachelorette party or baby shower can book private paint and sips. Jess even offers the space to the aspiring singers among us, hosting a monthly karaoke throwdown.
Jess is planning to make how-to videos that folks can consult when working on their projects in the studio, with the hope that they’ll instill the confidence people might need when stretching artistic muscles they may have never used before. “I’d like to give people more confidence in the fact that – yes, of course, I will help you with it if you need it – but you can do it yourself,” she said.
I’m always trying a thousand percent to give my best but you don’t know until somebody says how much it means to them, and that’s cool.
Art, and the practice thereof, is something that awakens and connects us to ourselves and each other. Illustrating this lesson, Jess relayed a story of a young student who had come in for a birthday party recently: “His parents…wrote me a card and said, ‘Thank you for giving us a safe space for our son, he really loves it there and he doesn’t feel comfortable in a lot of places.’ It’s the closest I get to my it’s-a-wonderful-life moment, those little moments when people say thank you…I’m always trying a thousand percent to give my best but you don’t know until somebody says how much it means to them, and that’s cool.”
Check out all of the Imagine That class offerings at their website, and be sure to follow their social accounts to see new things on the horizon, which Jess promises will be many in the new year. Field trips, private parties, and walk-in budding artists are always welcome.
Written by Kristy Lock
My name is Kristy and I’m an American journalist, specializing in profile writing. I’ve told the stories of frenetic & fascinating people in Chicago, Illinois, Los Angeles, California, and my hometown of Western New York for nearly two decades. Feel free to drop me a line! I would love to hear your story sometime.
Photos by Kristy Rock.