Doug Grow

 

MCDA thumbs its nose at artist's green thumb

All agency needed to destroy man's gift to a neighborhood was a lawn mower

STAR TRIBUNE, Metro/State, page B2, Monday, July 27, 1998

 

And so we learn again that one person's prairie is another person's weed patch. One person's attempt to help the environment is another's reason to fuel up the lawn mower and go to work.

Early this spring, Todd Bockley, a local artist, went to the Minneapolis Com-munity Development Authority (MCDA); seeking to adopt a lot. In an effort to spiff up the city, the MCDA has an adopt-a-lot program, which allows citizens to turn vacant MCDA properties into flower gardens. According to the MCDA, about 30 of its lots have been adopted this summer.

Bockley adopted a lot at 19th and Central Ave. in northeast Minneapolis. • Bockley's spot was your basic, urban vacant lot; filled with rubble, weeds, broken glass and junk. The soil in Bockley's adopted land was laced with various toxins and pollutants.

Bockley who is 38, isn't your standard flower-garden sort of guy. Rather he's an artist who was heavily influenced by the • late Joseph Beuys. In the early 1980s, Beuys was doing such things as planting thousands of sunflowers along roadways in the name of art.

"In this situation [the lot at 19th and Central], I was trying to use my creativity to help the soil," Bockley said.

Bockley didn't have flower-garden beauty in mind. He was thinking biotemediation. "Certain plants can absorb toxins from the soil," Bockley explained.

So, with donated seeds and donated compost and considerable sweat, Bockley worked his garden. He planted in circles on the lot and connected the circles with wood-chip paths. There was Indian corn "which is tough to grow, but this had grown to 4 feet tall"), pumpkin patches ("for the neighborhood kids") and melons and sunflowers.

In Bockley's view, wonderful things began to happen on this previously ugly lot: Plants grew, some native sorts of plants (or were they weeds?) grew, too. Birds began to arrive as did neighborhood volunteers.

The artist/gardener/environmentalist was ecstatic.

The MCDA wasn't. MCDA officials said those who adopt lots pledge to grow flowers only. No fruits or vegetables.

"We've found that people get very territorial about the property once food is being grown," said Carter Johnson of the MCDA. "In the past, when they [vegetable gardens] were authorized, we've had neighborhood disputes. One neighbor yelling at another neighbor, 'You took my corn!' We're trying not to get into that sort of situation."

Here was Bockley's garden, filled with corn and pumpkins and melons. In addition, of course, were those lovely prairie plants or awful weeds, depending on your point of view.

Said lohnson: "It was an eyesore."

Said Bockley: "To my eye, I thought it was beautiful."

Given that the big Northeast parade is to be held Tuesday right down Central Avenue, Johnson said the MCDA had an obligation to clean up its Central Avenue property. The mower arrived Thursday.

"We took the corn down, the pumpkins down," Johnson said. "We did leave the sunflowers because we could classify them as flowers."

Johnson said the MCDA attempted to get a hold of Bockley before the mower struck. Bockley said he recalls no messages being left for him.

But the big point Bockley said he'd like to make is that the narrow views of what's lovely to look at may be environmentally harmful.

"They're interested in tidying up," Bockley said, "but because of our concern for what we think is tidy, the environment is the big loser. The question we should be trying to answer is: What's most beneficial for the soil?"

Bockley said he made some mistakes. He believes now he should have been clearer about his intentions.

"I should have had signs up explaining the purpose," he said. "I could have explained with signs that the plantings were to restore the soil.. . . I had hoped to use the lot as an example."

It became an example, all right. An example of what one person and a lawn mower can do.

 

home | center for social sculpture