FLOW arts crawl celebrates welcome change in north Minneapolis

When George Roberts first opened Homewood Studios on North Plymouth Avenue in 1999, he'd start each morning by sweeping up the crack vials and bullet casings that had accumulated overnight on the sidewalk in front of the gallery and meeting space.

Today, he no longer has to. North Minneapolis is still troubled by occasional violence, but Roberts said the neighborhood is changing for the better — in part because of artists and the people they attract. The work of many will be on display this weekend when north Minneapolis celebrates FLOW, its 10th annual art crawl.

"We're not out of the woods yet, certainly," he said. "There's still a lot of perceptions about who we are that are quite narrow in scope — and we still have difficulties here — but the frequency of incidents has declined."

Roberts said parents who once feared sending their kids to the neighborhood for arts activities are now eagerly signing them up. Artists' homes have replaced businesses that attracted criminal behavior, he said, and young couples of diverse backgrounds are buying houses in the area.

He credits investments by the city and local funders in creative activities like this weekend's art festival with spurring the change.

FLOW first got its start in 2006, when the Peace Foundation, since renamed the Northside Achievement Zone, created it as a way to celebrate the good things in a neighborhood known for shootings and drug-related problems, FLOW Coordinator Dudley Voigt said.

"We know that there is economic vitality around the arts," she said. "Our artists are entrepreneurs and by funding them we create opportunities for economic growth in Minneapolis."

In its first year, the art crawl attracted a few hundred people who toured six sites. Now organized by the West Broadway Coalition, FLOW draws thousands of people to more than 30 locations in north Minneapolis. It features visual art, music, dance and theater.

The heart of the festival is the intersection of Broadway and Emerson Avenues. The corner is home to Juxtaposition Arts, which gives students on-the-job training in artistic careers.

One group of students is working on a series of photographs that will be displayed in vacant spaces along Broadway.

"They are supposed to evoke these narratives for people to think about how to reimagine these spaces," 18-year-old Aislinn Mayfield said of the group's photographs. "[They aim] to evoke questions like, 'How can we revitalize them? How can we make new histories around them?'"

Juxtaposition Arts first moved to the corner the year that FLOW started.

"Adjacent to our property in every direction were vacant, abandoned or underutilized spaces," recalled DeAnna Cummings, co-founder of Juxtaposition Arts.

In the last decade, the organization has expanded to three other properties. Several other businesses joined it, including a new coffee shop and a restaurant. Non-profits such as Urban Homeworks and Emerge have taken over abandoned spaces and are now using them to provide job training and help with housing.

"Within a one-block radius of our base, there's been upwards of $80 million in investment in other buildings and businesses in the neighborhood," Cummings said.

An area where visitors and residents once felt unsafe is now vibrant and alive with people.

Just a few blocks west on Broadway, photographer and videographer Bill Cottman rents a studio space upstairs from the recently renovated Capri Theater.

Cottman participated in the first FLOW by making paper copies of his black and white photos and stapling the images to the exteriors of boarded up buildings. This year, his photos will hang on the wall of a local restaurant, K's Grocery and Deli.

"One of the neatest things about a day for me is to decide if I'm going to eat at K's or Sammy's or Breaking Bread," he said. "I have a dilemma now — I have a delightful dilemma."

While north Minneapolis has seen significant changes over the past several years, Cottman and others are wary of gentrification.

To ensure that longtime residents are not priced out of the neighborhood, they say the city must continue investing in local talent and support initiatives and activities that have the good of the community in mind.

"It's really an investment in local folks, what's good here now and really putting more resources and support behind local initiatives and activities," Cummings said. "Key to this idea of fending off gentrification is investing in local first and investing in folks who are really rooted here and committed first. And I think that's really happening."

If you go

What: FLOW, the 10th annual celebration of visual and performing arts in north Minneapolis
When: Thursday through Saturday (July 23-25)
Where: West Broadway between Penn Avenue North and 2nd Street and on Plymouth Avenue North between Sheridan and Russel Avenues