The Eternal Flame Story: A Century of Community Transformation

Calvary Lutheran Church has been a hub in South Minneapolis for decades. The building houses a small but compassionate congregation, an active food shelf, and for years was the home of Urban Arts Academy (UAA), a nonprofit focused on arts education for local youth. When UAA shuttered its doors, a huge section of the building was left vacant, adding a financial burden to the congregation. It was clear that something needed to change.

"We're a very small congregation compared to the size of our property," says Melissa Brooks, Calvary Food Shelf Coordinator. "[Urban Arts Academy] was our last tenant, and that side of the building went into pretty bad disrepair. It became more of a building than we could handle."

It was clear that something needed to change. With their eyes towards uplifting South Minneapolis neighbors, the congregation decided to work with Trellis MN - a local real estate developer with a focus on equity and affordable housing. From 2020 to 2023, Trellis carried out renovations under the watchful eye of Calvary's community.

"We wanted to make sure that a big developer wasn’t going to try to get a lot of money for apartments [here]," says Brooks. The congregation wanted deeply affordable apartments and an expansion of the food shelf's capacity - demand had soared since 2020 - and Trellis listened.

"This was one of the most community-driven processes I've ever been a part of," says Dan Walsh, Vice President of Housing Development with Trellis. "Over and over when we spoke to community leader and constituencies, what [we heard] is that they wanted this building to be 'of the community.'" 

"It wasn't Trellis's idea to invest in expanding the food shelf," he adds. "And it's not necessarily something we would have chosen to do if it had been solely up to us, but the message was so clear that this was such an important community resource that we listened and we worked really hard to make it a much better food shelf."

The Eternal Flame sculpture, with the Belfry Apartments building in the background.

Alongside these conversions, Trellis was committed to honoring the history of the building. 

"Early on, we did know that there was a real opportunity in that transition area between the sidewalk and the courtyard," Walsh recalls, "for something more than just a monument sign. but it wasn't until we had other community conversations where it rose in importance."

Here’s where the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center stepped in. Nobody can quite remember who first made the connection, but everybody involved agreed that this project was the perfect fit for CAFAC.

"It was the rootedness that [CAFAC] has, not only in George Floyd Square, but in the neighborhood and in South Minneapolis, that they were just the natural fit to coordinate the sculpture," says Walsh.

Just like Trellis, CAFAC's approach to the project centered community engagement and feedback.

"We wanted to engage with all three partners: the Calvary Congregation, the Food Shelf, and Urban Arts Academy," says Heather Doyle, CAFAC's Artistic Director.

"Why were all these entities in this location? Why were they together for so long? What made it special? Those were the questions we wanted to speak to the piece,” adds Jess Night, CAFAC’s Shop Coordinator. Together, Doyle and Night were responsible for the sculpture’s design, as well as planning community engagement to inform their work.

CAFAC's engagement with Calvary's congregation took place after services and online, and helped determine the direction of the sculpture's design.

"That's where the image of the eternal flame came from," Doyle explains. “And we chose our materials based on the partners that we had,” says Night.

Stainless steel represents the Calvary Food Shelf and the kitchen where they prepare food; bronze represents the Calvary congregation, which has stood the test of time; and weathered steel represents the transformative process of education and artistic development that took place at Urban Arts Academy during its tenure. Sheets of these three materials were cut, bent, and polished to create the main body of the sculpture: the flame itself. Along with the flames, the sculpture also includes enameled photos based off of images taken at Urban Arts Academy by Bruce Silcox, as well as multiple cast bronze pieces molded by Calvary Food Shelf participants at a community event. Parents, children, and other Food Shelf clients came together to create molds out of plasticine clay reflecting their favorite foods.

Left: A close-up of a fish modeled out of plasticine clay by a participant at a community event. Right: A close-up of one of the cast bronze pieces, poured from a mold made at the same community event.

"The process that [CAFAC] proposed and executed was so of the community and for the community. We're really happy with how it looks and functions in the space," says Walsh, "but it was the process they went to that was just as important."

Doyle and Night felt that honoring community was particularly important for this piece, but it's also been a part of the CAFAC arts practice since the beginning.

"The lead designers usually don't make the artwork at all," says Doyle. Once a piece is designed, skilled fabricators are brought in to problem solve and carry out the physical construction of each artwork - but these fabricators rarely if ever are credited for their work.

"There's a lot of training involved in working on these projects," she adds, "and none of that is reflected [once a piece is installed]. They don't have their names on it."

"We wanted to make sure that [Eternal Flame] was the start of a tradition to honor the hands that actually make a piece, and respecting public art fabrication as its own unique skill set."

Calvary Food Shelf Coordinator Brooks described the sculpture's process of creation as a microcosm of the community it represents.

"It's a team, a community building it. In pieces, literally, but also in pieces of time over time. Not just one person, one source, one work period," she explains. "It's kind of amazing to see how it's all put together."

Brooks had the opportunity to participate in the fabrication process herself, too, dressing in casting leathers to help pour molten bronze in the fall of 2023.

"I was really glad I could be involved, not just watching," she says. "Creating something new and beautiful from the old is an amazing concept!"

The pour team carefully pours molten bronze into open-face sand molds at a community event in November 2023.