Chicago Fire Furniture

Walk into Darrel and Reesheda Washington’s new L!VE Café for an exceptional cup of coffee and you just might find yourself engaged in inspiring conversation with like-minded community members seated around a rather exceptional piece of art—a beautiful, torched wood table by artist Julius Dorsey of Chicago Fire Furniture.

With family roots in Detroit and an art background in drawing, painting and photography, Julius finds a great deal of enjoyment in creating life from things most other people consider junk. In fact, it was a summer break trip to visit his grandmother in Detroit, while pursuing his education at the Art Institute of Chicago, that Julius was first inspired with the notion that where there is decay, there is growth. He decided then and there that one day he would use that in his art—the idea of building something to stand for unconventional beauty and the dichotomy between growth and destruction.

Four years later, the idea resurrected through an unexpected medium. Fire. Julius decided he would attempt to create something new through a means of destruction ... and Chicago Fire Furniture was born.

Although his inspiration came from Detroit, Julius says his sense of urgency came from his household. “I started this business after being fired from a sales job in my late 20’s. In a month, I went from being on pace to earn 6 figures in my ‘dream’ job, to having no income, with bills on the way and a wife 8-months pregnant with our 4th child. Oh, and I was flat broke and we had no health insurance.”

Rather than taking another job, Julius decided to take a leap of faith and start something on his own. For the next year, he transformed his condo into a woodshop. “I was literally refinishing furniture in my kitchen nook and photographing in my dining room,” Julius says. “Customers would show up to see my ‘showroom’ and encounter my kids running all over the place. I carried a few hundred pieces of furniture up 2 flights of stairs for over a year before getting my own woodshop.”

Today, Julius has a woodshop in the Pilsen neighborhood of Chicago. His one-of-a-kind furniture pieces are physically torched outdoors--usually at night--and stored in the same building that houses the workshop.

Julius draws his inspiration from his surroundings and from the streets. “I’ve always been drawn to the unmanicured corners of the city where the raw truth is out in the open. I like to view life before and after the cameras start rolling with all the imperfections in plain view.”

His advice to others? “Never let fear tell you what you can or can’t do. Don’t be afraid to back yourself into a corner where failure isn’t an option and fight your way out. You’ll make and become something amazing in the process.” Which is just one reason why his table is a perfect fit in L!VE Café.