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The Columbia Chronicle just published a great article (”Modern Medievals,” Oct 13, 2008) highlighting the Chicago fire arts center’s talented forging instructor, Jon Gruber.

The article begins where Jon began…learning the hard way as a medieval jouster with bad armor:

“I had no armor of my own when I started, so I’d get loaner suits,” Gruber said. “And getting unhorsed at 30mph hurts a lot worse when your armor doesn’t fit right. Being injured after wearing ill-fitting suits was what got me into forging them myself.”

The article goes on to discuss Jon’s teaching philosophy and what his classes at the fire arts center of chicago offer.

You would be hard-pressed to find an opportunity to take a class like Jon’s in the entire country, let alone in Chicago. The class runs on Saturday, but has a limited class size to allow for more one-on-one instruction. Be sure to contact us today to find out how you can get in!

Our thanks to the Chronicle for shedding some light on this talented instructor. We appreciate all the hard work Jon does and his students truly enjoy the challenges offered by his classes.

Click here to read the full Chronicle article.

Yes, you heard right. The fire arts center of chicago is moving again. We are, as always, on the lookout for locations that best fit our requirements and the needs of our students. And we were able to find a space that better fills those needs and also provides room for growth. It is simply a better space for us all around.
Our new address is:

1907 N Mendell Street
Chicago, IL 60622
(click to view map)

We are still moving equipment and artwork over, little by little, so if you are unsure of where to meet please contact us to verify at 773.329.9908. Our classes are still meeting while we move things over so current students will be able to keep up their work in the meantime.

As always the decision to move is difficult, but we know we can better utilize this new space to continue offering some of the most unique art classes in the city of Chicago. We look forward to greeting you all at the new fire arts center of chicago.

As mentioned in the last post, the fire arts center of chicago is pulling up the stakes and moving to a new location.

Our new address is

1934 North Campbell Avenue
Chicago Illinois 60647

After long deliberation and much debate, we chose an incredible new space which will offer us room to grow over the next several years. It is always difficult to leave an area where you have developed connections and friends, but, as our students began to notice, our space there just wasn’t big enough to work in.

So with great excitement we are planning the unveiling of the *new* fire arts center of chicago. To see maps and images of the new building go to the new location webpage. We are looking forward to be in and around the exciting arts communities of Bucktown and Wicker Park and hope to add something new to the area.

Over the next week we will be slowly moving equipment and art to our new space. We don’t anticipate too much interruption in classes and studio time, but please be patient as we shift things over. Be sure to contact your instructor or Vince if you have any questions about class times or where to go and when. Our goal is to be up and running by July 8th, 2006, but ideally much sooner. Many of the classes will not be impacted by this transition, but others will require more time to set up because of the equipment needs. We will keep you posted on the details.

Again thanks to everyone in the Ravenswood area for all their support and kindness. We will truly miss the great people and exciting neighborhood.

The fire arts center of chicago has been constantly growing and changing over the last few years. Once again we have reached a point where we have outgrown our current space. At this moment, we are still in the same building at 1800 West Cuyler Street, but we have begun to look for a new, larger space. We have received some incredible offers from which to choose and there are some ideal locations which we are actively pursuing.

We are looking for a location that will provide us with more space now and that will include room for us to grow in the future. With growing interest in our classes we want to make sure we can accommodate the greatest number of students possible.

The fire arts center is also actively pursuing a permanent location to help us become a more stable fixture of the community. If you have a space that you might be interested in donating to a non-profit arts group (or if you know someone who might be interested), contact us and we will be happy to check it out and talk to you about arranging the donation. As most growing communities in Chicago can attest, promoting the arts in your community is a great way to help your neighborhood become the next hot spot in the city. In addition we have a number of plans for after-school arts classes for kids that we would love to provide to any community.

Our contact information will remain the same and we hope to have little to no interruption in the classes. We will be sure to post new information as it becomes available, but for now please continue to help support us and take advantage of the great opportunities we have for you.

We have loved being a part of our current neighborhood and would like to remain in this vibrant and growing arts community, but our need to provide the proper space for our students out-weighs the comfort of a familiar neighborhood. If you know of any space around our current location that you feel would work (for rent or for sale), please let us know. Again, we want to say “thank you” to everyone that helped make our stay enjoyable and exciting. Even if we do stay in the area, we thought it was a good time to say thanks to you all anyway.

Check back for more information on our move and take care…

The updates page has been rather quiet lately, but we have just been saving up for some more exciting news. We are as always, busy working in the studio, but you know that (and if you don’t then you need to stop by and see for yourself). Tonight was an even more active night for us. The fire arts center was a packed house as we hosted some Chicago explorers from the show 190 North. We got the pleasure of a visit from Doug Banks who checked out the inner-workings of fire arts. You will have to just tune in and watch to see all that happened during his visit. All I will say is, we kept him busy!

190 North is a show that basically highlights some of the great spots in Chicago and the surrounding suburbs. They highlight restaurants, shows, and more. Previous episodes have included highlights of the Butler Street Foundry, the Around the Coyote festival, the Chicago Center for Green Technology, and the Windy City Rollers (to name only a few of the countless highlights they’ve shown).

As for the episode which includes fire arts, we have a tentative air date of April 23. 190 North airs at 10:35pm on Sundays on ABC7. Don’t have a television…no problem. 190 North also Podcasts their show and it is available through the iTunes store for FREE. You can find out more on the 190 North website.

So mark your calendars and set your TiVos, because you will not want to miss this.

Thanks for stopping by, Doug!

The fire arts center of chicago has a new official class offering, but this one is for our new clientele…kids! Check out our new class listing on the children’s art classes page. The first of what we hope will be more children’s classes is Kids Mosaic and Beaded Jewelry Construction. Working with their own creative initiative, your child will be able to express their own talents through their work. (They may even make you something to show their thanks for signing them up!)

As the class description indicates the students will have plenty of fun options to work on:

Children will make a variety of projects including but not limited to ceramic mosaic pottery, picture frames, and beaded jewelry such as memory wire bracelets and wire wrap earrings.

So sign them up today and let them begin their artistic exploration!