With Calgary’s increasingly multi-cultural population, there is also a demand for art and other goods from around the globe.

Enter Art Central, a hub of galleries, studios and shops in the city’s vibrant downtown core (100 7 Avenue S.W.). Celebrating its four-year anniversary this month, Art Central provides much-needed studio space for artists of all stripes, most of which are open to the public. Some, like ACAD’s Studio Prize and st[art] @ Art Central have a rotating selection of new and upcoming artists, while others are occupied by a single artist full-time. In all there are 24 artists’ studios at Art Central, working in all manner of media, from painting to furniture design to jewelry making.

Developed by Encorp Management Inc., the 1920s era building originally known as the Jubilee Block, which once housed, among other things, a bowling alley and a furrier, was reborn as Art Central in November of 2004. David Neill, Encorp’s president, says Art Central fills an important need in Calgary’s arts community and gives artists an opportunity to interact with the public.

“Being in the cultural district we felt it would make a good arts complex,” he says. “It has always been a pet project of mine to do something for facilitating studios because typically artists are situated in their own house; they’re producing art but don’t have a facility for selling the art. With Art Central we felt that this was a perfect opportunity to create a lot of studios.”

Neill says one of the major steps toward creating a studio and sales environment for artists was connecting the building to the downtown’s plus-15 system. Once that was achieved, Art Central became a destination for many downtown workers and residents who visited for lunch at one of the two cafes or to browse the assortment of shops.

Although there are many galleries selling artwork, Art Central also hosts a variety of tenants in other streams of what it believes to be visual art, including fashion, jewelry and floral design. Each offers something different from the rest, so that everyone who visits can find something to suit their tastes.

One such shop is Rox Gems, owned and operated by Roxana Najar, originally a fashion designer from Mexico. Her custom, handmade jewelry features a rainbow of stones, from dark red garnets to vibrant purple amethysts, and everything in between. She also works with amber, pearls, topaz and fossilized shells. There are pieces for all occasions, from bridal jewels to accessories to don at cocktail parties.“I had my own line of leather clothing and started to accessorize them with gems,” Najar says, explaining how she made the transition from fashion to jewelry. “Now I travel to Brazil, Mexico and India to buy my gems.” Her customers are often looking for that perfect, eye-catching piece no one else will be wearing.

Najar believes her selection of necklaces, bracelets, earrings, pendants and rings can offer mystical properties as well as aesthetic ones, which add to their appeal. “Gems have energy,” she says, noting that quartz, for example, is commonly used for healing and purifying.

Mark Proud, another world traveller, is the owner of Trouvé, a small gallery on the upper level. In his work as a venture capitalist, he travels frequently to Asia, where he has found visual art that he saw a market for in Calgary. “I started collecting a few years ago,” he says. “I met a lot of artists around the world, but no one was bringing their work here.”

Proud, who opened Trouvé in August of this year, finds that many of his clientele are people who live downtown and are looking for a unique piece. “I’m getting a lot of people in who are just into their new condos and are looking for something different, more urban,” he says. He is currently featuring Vietnamese artists Nguyen Dinh Hien, an artist who paints the dense cityscapes of Saigon using bright, eye-catching colours, and Hoang Trong Tien, whose finger-painted canvases featuring idyllic landscapes are anything but childish.

Culture Shop, also on the upper level, is another place where you can find items from around the world. Walking into the store, the sweet scent of incense wafts around you, adding an olfactory dimension to the shopping experience. Carrying a selection of goods from nearly every continent, owner Fauzia Hassan ensures everything she sells is fair trade, which guarantees that the people who make the items receive a reasonable wage and safe working conditions. Although the emphasis is on home décor, Culture Shop also sells clothing, jewelry, music and artwork. Colourful parasols from India hang from the ceiling, bright, sequined throw pillows are piled on top of a sectional couch, alpaca wool coats from Ecuador promise protection against Calgary’s winter chill, wooden masks adorn the natural brick wall—it’s like walking into a global bazaar.

A more local focus can be found at the Gallery of Photographic Arts Canada on the lower level. It operates as a collective, with an average of 12 photographers rotating their work on a bi-monthly basis. Founded by Calgary photographer Steve Speer, the gallery is currently featuring his work as well as that of four others. The theme that seems to run between all photos is Canadian landscapes, whether urban or rural. Speer’s photos are vivid colour images of Ontario forests as they undergo their fall transformation.

Paul Stack uses a variety of vintage cameras to capture the Rocky Mountains, particularly its lakes. These prints have an ethereal, almost ghostly quality to them from the type of camera used and the developing process. Works by other artists include portraits of grain elevators from the Canadian prairies and urban abstracts.

Also featuring local and Canadian artwork of all types is Axis Contemporary Art, one of Art Central’s largest tenants. With a wall running through the middle of the space to create a loop, perusing Axis’ offerings is like taking a journey into modern art. Gallery director Rob Mabee says they rotate their works and artists fairly frequently.

“We try to keep our appeal urban and fresh,” he says. “Our artwork appeals to people moving into downtown who don’t necessarily have traditional styles.”

Indeed, the range of offerings spans from brooding seascapes full of darkness and light by Norah Borden, woodcuts of pop culture figures by Lisa Brawn, urban and Native Canadian-influenced paintings by Tim Okamura and delicate, colourful glasswork by Bee Kingdom, a three-man collective of ACAD graduates. Axis is also presenting An Evening With Marilyn, featuring photographs of Marilyn Monroe by Douglas Kirkland, starting November 29.

No visit to Art Central is complete without a visit to either deVille Luxury Coffee & Pastries for an expertly crafted drink, or the Siding Café for a sit-down meal. DeVille offers a full menu of hot beverages made on their top-of-the-line Synesso Cyncra espresso machine, as well as a selection of desserts by French bistro Saint Germain, in their retro-modern space on the upper level. The Siding Café offers upscale comfort foods like meatloaf, macaroni and cheese and turkey pot pie for lunch and dinner, as well as breakfast menu that features, among other things, a delicious apple pancake.

Art Central also has several tenants that offer public workshops such as La Fleur’s floral arrangement and wreath design tutorials. Art Central hosts an open house the first Thursday every month from 5 to 9 p.m. with special exhibits, music, performances and refreshments. All shops, galleries and studios are open during this time Information and specifics such as hours of operation and parking can be found at http://www.artcentral.ca. CL