Hothouse Mural

Meet the Organizer: Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center
Meet the Artist: Andrew Broder

The Hothouse mural, located on the north wall of the Chicago Avenue Fire Arts Center (CAFAC), is a large, exciting piece of artwork on Chicago Avenue, with design elements that provide for further community engagement. The “Hothouse” mural was conceived and designed by professional artists, who are assisted in the fabrication and installation process by incarcerated youth from the Hennepin County Home School (HCHS), a long-time partner of CAFAC. The youths’ participation provides them with tangible, technical skills in areas such as design, welding, metal fabrication, and electronics while also giving them the chance to leave a lasting, beautiful mark on a neighborhood where many of them grew up.

Andrew Broder’s design draws on architectural details of CAFAC’s building as well as its history as a neighborhood movie theater. The pattern of hexagonal shapes making up the mural were inspired by the original tile flooring of the former Nokomis Theater, uncovered when the building was being renovated for CAFAC’s use. The mural features a painted movie screen with art deco details atop the hexagonal tile pattern. This “blank space” in the midst of the mural will provide unique opportunities for ongoing artistic collaborations, such as projection of photographic works or video screenings.

To combine these historical elements with details that reflect the fire art-based work currently being produced by artists and students at CAFAC, the mural’s color scheme is based on the range of hues produced by fire – from reds, oranges, and yellows, to the icy blue of a lit welding torch. The hexagonal grid pattern tapers into whorls of smoke and flame along the top of the wall, and an eye-catching banner over the main shop entrance, with the word “Hothouse” in an art deco typeface, rounds out the painted elements of the mural and welcomes the community into the building.

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