Calgary: East Side Art Crawl (11 St SE Art Walk)
Calgary artists seldom get enough recognition for the amazing work they do in transforming our city into an intriguing and stimulating place to live, work and play. I am reminded of that every September when several groups of artists working along or near 11th Street SE organize an art studio crawl to showcase not only their work, but how they have transformed old (sometimes derelict) buildings into incubators for artists and other creative types.
Let’s take a virtual walk along 11th St SE from 17th to 26th Ave and see what we find.
The NVRLND studio shouts out “think differently.” Note the wall of doors is from the old Shamrock Hotel.
Jeff de Boer’s studio is located the old “Superblend Feeds” building.
Burns Visual Arts Studio is home to 20+ established and emerging artists.
Artpoint studio doesn’t look like much, but inside the two gallery spaces and artists’ studios are lovely.
ARTPOINT (1038 - 17th Ave SE)
You can’t miss this bright red and green building perched on the side of the hill. You can see the building from 11thST SE, and the entrance faces 11th ST SE, but you have to climb a small hill to get there from the sidewalk. If you start here, there is a parking lot but you have to access it from 17th Ave SE on the east side.
ARTPOINT includes a main floor gallery space, with studios also on the main floor, as well as the second floor. The large Heritage Weavers & Spinners studio in the back is always full of members wearing fun, colourful clothing they have made.
FYI: Though this building was supposed to be lost to the construction of the LRT Green Line, kudos to the city and community champions who found a way to save it for the benefit of the community and the artists recognizing art and artists are critical to making Ramsay fun, funky and quirky.
Second floor gallery
Heritage Weavers & Spinners studio
Studios are jam packed with fun artworks.
Anne Tapler White’s (no relation) mysterious, lead-coloured vignettes create a strange narrative.
Jeff de Boer Studio (Bay 3, 1701 - 11th St SE)
Jeff de Boer has had his studio in this old metal warehouse building for over 20 years.
An international sculptor, he creates both major public artworks as well as more intimate gallery sculptures like his armoured mice and chain-mail ties. He has numerous pieces at the Calgary International Airport, including one of my favourites – the two twirling airplanes in WestJet’s domestic boarding lounge.
His studio is a beehive of activity as he and his colleagues work on ideas for new public artworks, as well as working on Armet a “make your own jewellery” concept that is very cool. De Boer and his team are very approachable and knowledgeable, I am sure if you knock on the door they would be more than willing to show you the studio.
The building itself has an interesting history too. It was developed in 1912 as the Canadian Western Natural Gas Company’s Warehouse #2. At one point, it became an experimental facility to produce helium gas for military air ships. In the 1930s, it housed the Calgary Casket Company, followed by Central Flour Mills. Then in the ‘40s to the ‘70s it was the feed mixing warehouse of the Calgary Co-operative Fur Farmers’ Association. Calgary businessman John Holt then bought it and converted it into a residence, office space and artists’ studios. Thought “residential” was not allowed in the Feed Mill building, Holt found a loophole that allowed him to reside there as the janitor! (Source: Historic Walks of Calgary, by Harry Sanders and Erin Joslin, community champion.)
Mock-up for a public art piece Jeff is working on.
Ramsay Design Centre (1902 - 11th St SE)
Originally the Western Steel Products Ltd building, this old red brick building is home to several creative enterprises including Avenue, RedPoint Media and The Commons, one of Calgary’s first co-work spaces. Built in 1918 with additions in 1921 and 1926, it is a great example of the adaptive reuse of early 20th century buildings by artists and designers.
Ramsay Design Centre is home to numerous create industries.
Snowdon Block (2020 - 11st SE)
This recently restored building dates back to 1911 when it was the C.C. Snowdon Oils Factory and Office, making it one of Western Canada’s first oil manufacturing and refining businesses. As part of the restoration, a new glass and steel addition was added to create more space for a diversity of users.
The recently opened Calgary Heritage Roasting Company, a funky café on the main floor which includes its own roasting machine is sure to make this building very attractive to creative types.
Snowdon Block, 1911
Dandy Brewing Company & Tasting (2003 - 11th St. SE)
Across the street from the Snowdon Block is Dandy Brewing Company & Tasting, which opened in 2014 as one of Calgary’s first craft brewhouses. Today the tasting room offers not only 20 Dandy beers on tap, but a curated cocktail and wine menu with chef Merritt Gordon serving up some great food for lunch, dinner and brunch on weekends. It can be a “hoppy” place at happy hour.
Dandy Brewing can take credit for being a game changer for 11th Street SE as it was the catalyst to get Calgarians to venture south of Inglewood under the tracks and into Ramsay.
The Dandy Brewing Co. is a converted garage.
NVRLND (1048 - 21st Ave SE
NVRLND is located in what is left of Calgary’s infamous Shamrock Hotel. Who knew there was a second Shamrock building on the northside of St SE? The City of Calgary owns the building and with no immediate use for it and some prompting by Erin Joslin (eventually the site will be incorporated into the Green Line LRT) agreed to allow the NVRLND collective of artists to use it a studio space – if they cleaned and fixed it up. You don’t want to know how dirty the place was! But as artists do, they rolled up their sleeves and converted the building into 26 very, very hip spaces for creative types (currently there are 35 interdisciplinary artists using the spaces). A few traces of the building’s former days as a hotel remain – such as the room doors and each artist has one of the original room keys.
The outside of the building has been converted into a fun public artwork that shouts out “think differently.” It is used for numerous open houses and community events, making it a fun community gathering place.
One of the funky eclectic studios at NVRLND.
Crossroads Market (1235 - 26th Ave SE)
At the end of 11th ST SE is the Crossroads Market site that encompasses not only a year-round farmers’ market, but also a flea market, Loose Moose Theatre’s performance space, the Alberta Society of Artists office and small intimate gallery space (only open during the week), as well as numerous other creative industries. Wander the building’s hallways as they are full of artworks, making it gallery-like.
Alberta Society of Artist’s Gallery in the Crossroads Art Centre.
Burns Visual Arts Society (828 – 24th Ave SE)
The Burns Visual Arts Society building, while not right on 11th St SE, sits only a few blocks away. It houses Canada’s oldest artists’ collective dating back to 1979 when 50 artists took advantage of low rental rates at the Burns Building (Stephen Avenue and Macleod Trail) in downtown Calgary. The Burns Building became slated for demolition to make way for a new performing arts building. (Side note: While the building was saved from the wrecking ball, the artists were evicted to make way for the new arts centre – today Arts Commons.)
Upon eviction, some of the artists formed a society (Burns Visual Arts Society) and moved to the Neilson Block on Stephen Avenue which they called home for 19 years (1981 to 2000) before relocating to their current Ramsay location.
And, while the building isn’t technically open to the public, if the door is open and if you are respectful, I suspect you can wander around the building’s art-filled hallways. And, I am sure artists would be willing to let you peek into their studios.
FYI: The idea of a Ramsay Studio open house originated with two members of BVAS – Cecilia Gossen and Celia Meade, who wanted to connect with their new community when then moved to Ramsay. They researched studio open house events in other cities and visited Vancouver to determine how best to organize an annual community studio event. Ever since the first crawl in 2002, each year the event has evolved and grown. This year, over 500 people dropped by their studio – with some lining up at 9am even though the doors didn’t open until 11.
Last Word
Indeed, artists and other creative types are very adept at adapting old spaces into new studios for various kinds of endeavours. 11th St SE is not Calgary’s prettiest street. There are no banners, no hanging baskets and no designer benches. And yes, for some it might be the wrong side of the tracks, the elevated CPR tracks creating a “no man’s land” between 11th Ave and 17th Ave SE.
But that is perhaps its charm. I love the grittiness of 11th ST SE as opposed to the glitter of the new contrived, generic pedestrian streetscapes you find in most inner-city communities in North America. However, I expect its “charm days” are numbered as the Green Line station at 11th St and 17th Ave SE is sure to gentrify the area.
In the meantime, kudos to our local artists for creating fun, funky and quirky places and spaces for other Calgarians to explore and enjoy.