The first time Lynquell Biggs was shot, the bullet pierced the left side of his chest just below his heart as he walked home from school in his then Washington Park neighborhood at age 14.
“The second time I was shot, I was 21 years old and I got shot six times outside my house near the United Center,” Biggs told the Austin Weekly News.
The trauma was overwhelming. As a victim of the city’s gun violence, Biggs was left feeling depressed and unsafe.
“I was going through a lot of stuff after that,” he explained. “I didn’t want to watch TV or movies where guns were shown and people were getting killed. I could not watch that for a long time. I couldn’t laugh anymore…I wasn’t the same. I wasn’t happy and my mom noticed that it had changed me. I would just sit in my room. She wanted to find me help.”
A therapist recommended Biggs to Firebird Community Arts, which offers a glassblowing, ceramics, trauma recovery program for youth injured by gun violence.
The center was recently awarded $2.5 million in Chicago Recovery Grant funding to build its own facility and healing garden space near its current location in East Garfield Park.
Its work made all the difference to Biggs.
Sustaining six gunshot wounds made it impossible for Biggs to make it up the stairs to his home so he sought help at the grocery store a short distance down the block from where he lived; Chicago Police officers were there.
“I tried to get help from them and one of the police officers actually told me they were on a break,” Biggs recalled. “There was a lady police officer named Ella French, she helped me. She died a couple of months later. I was thankful for her.”
French, who was 29, was killed and another officer seriously wounded in an exchange of gunfire during a traffic stop in West Englewood in 2021.
Healing arts
The program Biggs attended is called Project FIRE, co-created about 10 years ago by glass artist Pearl Dick and clinical psychologist Bradley Stolbach in partnership with Healing Hurt People-Chicago, with the support of a University of Chicago Medicine Urban Health Initiative Faculty Fellowship. It works with 25 young people per session to offer mentoring and lessons in artisan manufacturing.
“We did glass blowing and I didn’t like it at first because it messed up my clothes so I left, ” Biggs said of his first encounter with the program.
After finding his way back, Biggs was recognized as a natural at making glass-blown art. He’s been part of the program since 2017 and is now an art teacher.
Blowing glass is a definite part of his healing process.
“Once you get into the art shop and you get to express yourself through making art, you’re in a safe haven,” Biggs explained. “Once you’re there, nothing else really matters. I just feel like the outside doesn’t exist when I’m working with glass. All of my problems just seem to fade away when I’m working with art.”
Vases, sculptures, chandeliers, drinking cups for companies and wine toppers are among the works of art he’s made and sold. He said he’s earning “good money” now.
The organization is an important part of the East Garfield Park community and should be established all over the city in every neighborhood, Biggs said.
“I feel like if Firebird changed me, it can change a lot of people,” he added.
The community arts organization caters to underserved communities and has relocated multiple times as a result of neighborhood gentrification.
“We’ve been around for a bunch of years trying to get in where we fit in, in terms of space,” said Karen Reyes, Firebird’s executive director. “It’s a very common story where arts organizations come into spaces where they’re not super expensive and then the neighborhood shifts, prices go up and then you got go.”
Just as new cafes being built up in underserved communities are typically a sign of gentrification, so are arts organizations.
“Unfortunately, arts organizations are used as, like, an engine for that sometimes,” Reyes explained. “It’s something that, on the one hand, you’re not in control of when you’re renting these spaces but you’re definitely super aware. We’re always trying to orient ourselves to the community that has been there [already] and not like some future community that’s moving in.”
Once the rent doubled at the current space on West Lake Street, the group decided they could longer deal with the constant disruption, especially because they were trying to provide a safe space.
The community arts center also serves individuals impacted by structural or individual trauma, including violently injured youth, veterans, formerly incarcerated individuals, immigrant populations and Chicago Public School students on the South and West sides.
“Our young people make items that are sold wholesale to earn money,” Reyes said. “There’s a special kind of building that we need. Glass requires a bunch of power and gas and all that kind of stuff.”
Mayor Brandon Johnson visited the Firebird studio in 2022 in his role as Cook County Commissioner.
“Firebird Community Arts believes that arts like glass blowing and ceramics have the power to heal, empower and enrich the lives of people impacted by trauma,” he said at the time. “I am proud to support these programs serving the Garfield Park area. I applaud them for the valiant work they do.”
Reyes stressed there’s so much brilliance and talent in the underserved communities.
“It’s just a matter of the neighborhoods have been neglected and disinvested by the city for decades,” Reyes said. “So, if folks had anything approaching what some North Side neighborhoods and other neighborhoods have, rather than violence being the narrative, the brilliance of the people who are there would be the story.”
Firebird is not coming into an underserved community and creating something that’s not already there in terms of talent, she reiterated.
“We’re just creating a container for artistic expression and safe space with the best resources so people can thrive,” she said.
Getting the funding was not an easy process for the arts organization. There were four application submittals before finally being awarded the grant money.
“The announcement was made Jan. 30 that we’re getting just a little over $2.5 million,” Reyes told the Austin Weekly News. “We’re also acquiring a city-owned vacant lot down the street from us, just four blocks at Homan and Lake Street.”
The organization will use the $2.5 million in Chicago Recovery Grant funding to help facilitate the land purchase and to build a new, 12,000-square-foot state-of-the-art community glass and ceramic studio, along with a healing garden.
A gallery, store, parking space, and a pop-up snack cafe are part of the building plan. The $2.5 million will go toward the $6,000,000 total project cost.
The West Side community art studio is expected to bring creative jobs, studio and exhibition space, beautification, and art sales as economic and cultural drivers to promote a safer and healthier community for the people of East Garfield and Chicago.
Construction is expected to begin in the second half of 2024 with completion scheduled for January 2026.