ROCHESTER, N.Y. — For 50 years, Rochester's community visual arts center, The Flower City Arts Center, has helped Rochester get, and stay, creative.

Allan Phoenix is like a kid in a candy store at the printmaking workshop at Flower City Arts Center. He showed off the center's presses and cabinets full of plates and blocks of letters and logos.

"It is the way that things have been printed historically from the 16th and 15th century. It’s a marvelous craft," said Phoenix, printmaking & book arts director at Flower City Arts.

Artists of all abilities can experience this old-time craft of letterpress printing and books arts along with ceramics, photography and digital arts at Flower City Arts Center. The annual calendar shows just how creative Rochester is. Each page was crafted by a different artist. Calendar sale proceeds help fund the center's overall operations and programs.

Ceramics student Marsha Sherwood admits she's not exactly an artist. She's here to try something new.

"The first time around it was like this is so frustrating. But, I’ve gotten it so it is kind of fun, and even if you don’t, you just keep doing it over it’s a lot of fun," said Sherwood, of Farmington.

This is a place of hands-on discovery with help from professional artists like Zara Davis. She's a second year resident artist at Flower City Arts. She sells her sculptures on Instagram and Etsy, and also teaches classes here.

"I really enjoy the environment," said Davis. "It’s a really good place to be. Everyone is really glad to be here, and they’ve chosen to be here, so it's a really good space. There are a lot of creative people."

"We are going to teach you how to become an artist if that’s what you wanna do, or even just as a hobby. It kind of turns an idea into a lasting experience for you and that’s kind of what we’re all about," said Simona Benenati, communications coordinator at Flower City Arts.