Residents and tourists alike can benefit from this downtown event.

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It was the ideal location: in the heart of downtown Fredericton, with a full view of the St. John River and a comfortable, accessible home in the basement of the city's Justice Building.

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But being right on the river has its downsides, and at the end of April, artist-run Gallery Connexion found itself flooded "" and homeless.

"Emotionally, it's devastating to see the damage and destruction caused by floodwaters," says gallery director Meredith Snider in an e-mail. "The four artists who had to vacate their studios have lost more than can be explained in words. Making art is a livelihood, a necessity for these people, and that has been stripped away from them with little warning."

That's not it: the Department of Supply and Services has decided to perform a professional evaluation of the building before continuing their investment in Gallery Connexion "" in short, kicking them out of the basement for the time being.

This is another blow to the gallery. Now, they're stuck scrambling to find a new space, since it doesn't look like they'll be back in the Justice Building anytime soon.

But, in true Maritime spirit, the city's robust arts community has jumped in to help: the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, City Hall, and the Playhouse will all be housing works from Gallery Connexion over the summer.

And not a minute too late. Mid-June is the kickoff for one of Fredericton's most innovative and inclusive arts events "" the Downtown Culture Crawl, which began three years ago.

The Crawl is based around the idea of the typical pub-crawl: hitting up as many galleries as possible in the span of an evening. The first of the summer kicks off on June 12, with subsequent crawls in the tourist-heavy summer season: July 3, Aug 7, and Sept 4.

For a gallery like Connexion, the Crawl is a way to expose a whole new variety of people to local artwork, namely tourists or the non-traditional gallery-goer.

"The crowd of people taking part in the Culture Crawl are different from those who regularly frequent the gallery scene," says Snider. "This means the Crawl is accessible and interesting to many members of the community, not only those who have invested interest in the arts."

"In my opinion, tourists are thrilled to see such a progressive, open-minded, talented community that still maintains a quiet charm. It's refreshing," says Shasta Stairs, marketing and communications manager for Downtown Fredericton Inc. "And the breadth of talent here is so outstanding it's able to stand on its own. Tourists and locals alike are able to recognize that.

"Something like the Culture Crawl allows them to glimpse into our community and gives a real sense of what things are all about here in Fredericton. It's much more fulfilling than say, visiting a franchised mall for production assembly line trinkets." This is Stairs' first year working with the crawl, but her past experience with artist-run non-profit organizations already gives her a step up in helping organize a city-wide art event, which she says helps promote the smaller, lower-budget venues. It's big-city culture with that distinctly Maritime touch.

"What makes downtown Fredericton the vibrant community it is, is the diversity you find here "" diversity on many levels," says Stairs. "We have some amazing restaurants that are on par with anything you would find in a major city like Toronto, Montreal or Vancouver; exclusive retailers mixed with vintage boutiques, handcrafted jewelry, one a kind home décor, bistros, cafes, traditional Maritime pubs. We have a booming arts and culture scene."

"It's a chance to show off your premises, highlight new work, a new artist or new product," adds Trudy Gallagher, the 'proprietress' of Bejewel, an art-jewelry store in Fredericton. "It's a chance to be seen by people who might not have been in before, and its just so much fun to talk with all the participants. I'm a super strong believer in culture - specifically arts and crafts as a way of life. Some of the best people I've ever known in my life are wonderful artisans."

Bejewel is fairly new on the arts scene, but has settled into a position as one of the most popular and unique galleries in the city. For Gallagher, artistry is about "unspoken communication", and jewelry plays a huge role in that.

"Jewelry...who was the first person who took animal gut, dried it and decided to put a pebble with a hole and a shell onto that string? Why did they do it? Was the stone special? Magical? Pretty?" Gallagher wonders. "I don't know how or why the first person did that...but I do know that jewelry is a form of self-expression that has existed almost as long as man has. Jewelry has been, and still is, a portable commodity...Jewelry is a status symbol, self expression, sentimental. Witness the masses of people who can't wear a piece that someone gave them [because] they had a fight, got divorced or don't speak to anymore. Think of thousands of us who have jewelry from our family history, would never wear it but keep it for sentimental reasons." On Charlotte St., at the Charlotte Street Arts Centre, there are several exhibitions going on, including a 13-artist presentation from Gallery Connexion. It's a happy accident that was planned months ago as a satellite showing for the gallery, but has become a place Connexion's artists to show their work after the loss of the studio.

In conjunction, there will be half a dozen working studios open to the public "" a chance to examine works in progress and explore the workspace of some of Fredericton's finest.

"There's a lot happening, culturally, [in Fredericton]," says Katie FitzRandolph, with the Centre. "Having a date, a specific date to go and do things, prompts people to do it, as opposed to [saying], 'One of these days I've got to go to the Charlotte Street Arts Centre and see what's going on'. And then you wind up deciding to have a barbecue and decide to work on the yard or you've spent the whole day digging in the yard and you're tired...[This way], you can put it in your daybook, and think, 'I'm not going to plan something else, I'm going to go over to that, because it'll be fun'."

And it's not just acres of great art; the City is encouraging folks to check out the historic buildings housing the galleries "" "My studio is in the corner of Grade 8," FitzRandolph, who attended the Charlotte Street School, laughs "" and this month, the event coincides with the annual Sheila Hugh MacKay Foundation Awards at the Fredericton Playhouse at 7:30 p.m.

The awards celebrate excellence in the field of fine craft or visual arts, and a Fredericton artist has been nominated for the $15,000 prize: weaver Linda Brine, who experiments with 'Saganishiki' "" a traditional Japanese method of weaving with metallic paper warp and silk weft.

For more information on the Crawl and the Gala, check out www.downtownfredericton.ca.