By Donna Barr

The Three Sisters of Clallam Art Gallery opened for the summer with a party, Saturday, May 4.

Featured musicians Paul Perry, on hammered dulcimer, and Wayne Turner on guitar, played traditional Irish tunes, with some cross-over bluegrass. A music jam was planned after their set.

The gallery, at 16590 West Highway 112 in Clallam Bay, offers a wide variety of local arts and crafts, and some very fine espresso, as well as summer and holiday events and potlucks. As long as the summer season lasts, there always will be something going on in the big front hall, with its shining wood floors, pool table and glittering chandeliers.

The community always gets up and dances when the Three Sisters parties. Look for their announcements in the Forks Forum community calendar and in fliers posted around the area.

Perry’s dulcimer was made some 20 years ago by Rick Fogel, whose company name, “Wham Diddle,” echoes the name of the instrument in Appalachia. In the Pacific Northwest, the hammered dulcimer is known as the “Lumberjack’s Piano.” The ancestral dulcimer originally came from the Middle East. It is in the psalter family and related to the Japanese koto.

Most dulcimers are made to play two and a half octaves. Perry’s features four and a half. Perry allowed members of the audience to experiment gently with the walnut hammers, so they could experience the way the instrument’s sounds reflect up toward the player.

Asked when he started playing the instrument, Perry, who also plays other instruments, said, “I don’t even remember when, but I admired ’em at the Folklife festival for about five years. I bought one at their auction and on the way home I was tapping out tunes at stop lights.”