During the six years that Becca Cerra has had a studio at Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC), she never noticed the Goodridge Building, one of CAFAC’s neighbors at George Floyd Square. With a non-descript brick front, it looked like just another quiet office space among a string of local businesses that make up the 38th Street Corridor. 

Once Cerra learned she was going to be making a green wall sculpture for the Goodridge Building, she began to look at it differently. On its west side, an empty white wall juts towards the sidewalk at a perfect angle for soaking in afternoon sunlight. Soon, Metro Blooms and Chicago Fire Arts Center (CAFAC) will be installing Cerra’s sculpture on that very spot, where it will hold flower-filled planters once spring comes. 

As part of the City of Minneapolis’s Great Streets program, Metro Blooms has been teaming up with artists like Cerra to enliven the outdoor spaces of small businesses along the 38th Street Corridor. Throughout 2021 and 2022, we’ve brought native plantings and pollinator-themed art to our neighbors, among them Hardshell Fitness, Cedar Small Engine, Everett’s, Southside Commons, and soon, the Goodridge Building.

What happens at CAFAC

But first, Cerra has a few finishing touches to make on her sculpture.

CAFAC’s shop contains troves of materials and tools for students and practitioners of the fire arts—any art form produced using heat, spark, or flame. Upstairs is a workspace for neon, jewelry, and small-scale glass work. “I call it the land of the delicates,” chuckles Cerra. Downstairs, where blacksmithing, welding, and foundry takes place, is where Cerra feels most at home.

At the far end of the room is a cluster of large forges and anvils, equipment used to heat up metal and hammer it into different shapes. In the center looms a power hammer, an advanced tool that Cerra uses to work with bigger and longer materials. Off to the side and propped carefully on a stool is the green wall—what Cerra has been giving all her focus to over the past month. The “wall” consists of a V-shaped frame with three rows of shelves. The shelves rise from an array of metal stems, which sprout shiny silver and gold flowers, butterflies, and twisting tendrils.

“It’s near the end now,” says Cerra. The last step is to attach more of the silver and gold pieces, which were made by community members at public events held by CAFAC and Metro Blooms over the past two years. “It’s really cool to see people who have never touched metal before, and tell them that their creation is going to live forever in a public artwork they can come see all the time,” she says.

Fitting the interlocking pieces of the green wall together has been a welcome challenge for Cerra. “This has been totally different from everything I normally do. I make a lot of tables and railings, things that serve one purpose and have one element.”

Another unique aspect of the project for Cerra has been figuring out the sculpture’s design in collaboration with Metro Blooms and Soular Scenes LLC. “The team aspect has been fun, because most of the time the only people I run my ideas by are myself and my client,” Cerra says.

More on Green Walls

Helping create a vertical “green wall” structure has also been a new experience for Rich Harrison, Co-Director of Design at Metro Blooms. “A green wall is exactly what it sounds like—vegetation growing on a vertical surface,” Harrison says. “We had to come up with a system for holding it in place, holding the soil and plants, and watering it.”

Most green walls are designed for warmer climates, and finding a cost-effective solution that can withstand Minnesota’s long winters and sunny, dry conditions was no easy task. The team came up with a simple, stacked window planter design. The planters on each shelf will be watered by  a small reservoir and self-watering globes to keep maintenance efforts at a minimum. 

With installation of the green wall just around the corner, Harrison is excited by the energy it will contribute to the community. 

“I would love to be walking over there and overhearing someone at the bus stop talking about what they see—whether about pollinators, native plants, community, environmental justice,” Harrison says. “That’s the best thing Metro Blooms and CAFAC could ask for—that pollinator and art installations can serve as a catalyst for strengthening relationships within the community, inspiring businesses and people to continue making the 38th Corridor a more connected and environmentally resilient place.”

– Megan Reich, Metro Blooms Marketing and Communications Specialist