Cannabis is hot right now. Like, Hansel in “Zoolander” levels of hot. But it hasn’t always been this way: through prohibition, social stigmas and straight up incarceration for some, cannabis and those who use it have come a long way and seen some… stuff.
With that in mind, this space, from here-on-out known as “To Be Blunt,” will aim to tell the stories of the persons, peoples and outsized personalities that have helped shape the cannabis industry into the national juggernaut it is today.
To kick off the series, To Be Blunt (or TBB) choose to spotlight a Southern Arizona entrepreneurial cannabis pioneer. As the owner and proprietor of Arte Bella on 4th Avenue (and another, family friendly location at Park Place Mall), the only cannabis-friendly bar/restaurant/paint-n-puff in Southern Arizona, Jen Christiansen is never not busy.
From helping lead weekly painting classes and mixing drinks, to battling state regulators to push cannabis further into the mainstream, Christiansen exudes the ethos of cannabis culture in the Old Pueblo: tough, always grinding, but friendly and welcoming to all who grace her doorway.
Christiansen reflects on her early experiences with marijuana, how health challenges reintroduced her to it, and why she feels Arte Bella’s mission is more than just blending art and cannabis.
Note: This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
To Be Blunt: Tell us a little about your first experience with cannabis: where you in high school or adolescence, or later in life?
Jen Christiansen: I grew up in Vermont, so all we had to do was go hiking and smoke weed. My first experience, I was 15, and I smoked some weed that probably had more seeds than flower in it and I smoked it out of an apple.
Someone carved an apple and, I don’t know why, we smoked out of it. It was fun. But I mean, I knew nothing about it. I was always paranoid. So I just stopped doing it. And then I joined the military, so I kind of couldn’t.
TBB: That’s a big change from not really smoking to now owning a cannabis-centric business. What changed?
Christiansen: I had endometriosis, unbeknownst to me. It went undiagnosed for 27 years. I was in an extreme amount of pain. Eventually, one of my friends, who actually was managing her leukemia and I knew because our kids were playing soccer together, she reintroduced me to cannabis and she introduced me to the science of cannabis.
She introduced me to the idea that, hey, it's not all going to make you feel paranoid. I guess this was in like 2012, 2013. Eventually, I went medicinal, and I got my license. That's how I was reintroduced to it, and it still helps me manage my pain.
TBB: So for you, cannabis is not just a consumer product to help you relax or get stoned, it is medicine?
Christiansen: It was literally a life saver, I'm telling you right now, I would not be here without it. Nothing helped me but dabbing. Nothing, not a damn thing.
I don't want to get into politics. I mean, it is politics. It is. So, you kind of have to. I mean, why isn't it legal? Why isn't it? Why isn't it federally legal yet? And so, this is why I’m pushing boundaries. Someone has to do it.
TBB: Talk a little about how Arte Bella came to be, was it a struggle getting it off the ground?
Christiansen: Arte Bella started in November of 2011, just doing paint and sips out of people's homes. And then it turned into going into restaurants and bars and things like that.
And during that time, I had a lot of pain, chronic pain, and I would listen to all of these women, you know, look down on people that, quote unquote, were druggies that were using cannabis.
And so in 2016, I got medicinally legal. So I started to do events called “Buds and Brushes” with the 420 Social Club and Veterans United for Cannabis. And then, as soon as it became recreationally legal, that’s when I started Arte Bella.
I opened the one over at Park Place Mall, which is a family friendly one, in September of 2019, right before the pandemic started. That was fun. But, in a nutshell, that’s the story.
TBB: You’ve touched a little on how Arte Bella came to be, what should customers expect from an Arte Bella visit – what is the vibe like?
Arte Bella on Fourth Avenue painters enjoy a night out.
Christiansen: They'll walk inside, they'll see the cannabis leaf and get intrigued, or they'll see the long hallway with these twinkling lights and these acrylic paintings on the doors and on the wall and people just get intrigued.
So they walk in and they'll get greeted by one of us and we'll tell them that this is a “4/20 friendly” bar and restaurant, and you can vape and dab inside, and then you can light flame to flower on our patio. You can paint too, it's $20 to drop in and just do your own thing and a $5 upgrade if you want to go to a larger canvas because the drop-in canvas is 12-by-12.
And then if you'd like to order food, you can just go through a different hallway that has a yellow brick road, so you follow the yellow brick road down to the restaurant where you can order and then they'll bring it back to you.
Then we have signature drinks and. We have cocktails like the starry night: It has edible glitter in it, and then we top it with edible stars. It’s inspired after van Gogh and what I did was sit the bartenders down, and say “OK, these are some of my favorite artists. We're going to go through one at a time. I'm going to show you some of their paintings. And I'm going to read a short bio and you have five minutes to create a recipe.”
TBB: It sounds like Arte Bella on 4th Avenue is for more than just the 4/20 and canna-curious crowd then?
Christiansen: It’s a great place to have a great time for misfits, you know, for people that have never fit in and they want an immediate family. This place is sort of the “Cheers” of our generation. People come in and the cannabis community is very tight and we're trustworthy for the most part.
For example, people have left their wallet on the table and their keys to their Lexus or whatever, and it's going to be there later that day or that next day, like people will watch it for you. People have left backpacks and different things like that.
But I always explained to them, to people, the rules. Because there are very, very specific rules that we follow, so we can stay open and people don't want to mess this up. We follow Prop. 207 to a “T,” we follow all the liquor laws, you know, and people are very respectful and I really appreciate that.
