By admin 
LYONS — Sometime during the three years fighting for justice after Clear Creek County sheriff’s deputies killed their son, Christian Glass’ parents bought a cabin above Lyons. “The retreat,” Sally Glass, Christian’s mother, still calls it.
Read more Aurora Water set to buy up more historic farm water in Lower Arkansas Valley
On one of the couple’s excruciating drives down the mountain to the courts, Sally spotted a building for sale at the edge of town. The former Diner Bar, a bright-pink and checkered retro-themed restaurant connected to a Western gallery. Sally looked closely at the building, eyed the graffiti that had been left on the walls, and spotted angels.
On Sept. 16, that building will open as Creative Grounds, a café and community space created for teens and young adults by Sally and Simon Glass. The pink exterior has been painted over in a warm blue. The graffiti has been replaced by three massive, kaleidoscopic lions painted by muralist Android Jones, inspired by a pastel drawing that Christian made of two lions nuzzling into each other.
That drawing hangs behind the counter of the space’s newly installed café.
“It’s about love,” Sally said Tuesday, staring at the drawing. “There was no love the night Christian was murdered,” she said, her face turning dark. “There was no compassion. No one said, ‘you’re scared, you’re really scared, let us help you.’”
“They just bullied and murdered him,” she said, then charged outside to gaze at the freshly painted lion looming over the building’s entrance.
“He’s got wings,” she said, pointing at the mural.
No need for fitting in
In June 2022, Christian Glass called 911 just before midnight when his car got stuck near Silver Plume, west of Denver, the last call the 22 year old would make.
The Clear Creek County Sheriff’s Office initially released a statement that Glass was “argumentative and uncooperative” and tried to stab an officer when police broke a car window to grab him. Details of Glass’ death weren’t revealed until months later when his family’s attorney released body-camera footage showing Glass making a heart with his hands toward the officers from inside his car before officers broke out the window, shot him six times with beanbag rounds, multiple times with a Taser and then five times with a handgun.
The Glass family received a $19 million police settlement as well as a slew of nonmonetary damages, including a park named in his honor, and a statue to be placed in a public space. Originally the statue was going to sit in Silver Plume near the site where he was killed, but that didn’t feel right to Sally.
“I felt for the communities. I’m like, ‘do you really want a reminder in your backyard of a poor boy that was murdered in your town?’ They had nothing to do with it,” she said.
The statue, a bronze casting of Christian sitting on a rock painting, instead will sit at the entrance to Creative Grounds.
The statue is based on Sally’s memory of the kid who would become hyper-focused making his art. He went to school in New Zealand until he was 10 when the family moved to the U.S.
In New Zealand, students have the opportunity to do “one day school,” a supplemental program for kids who might learn better outdoors or need a break from the classroom. During a trip to the beach, Sally watched Christian completely transfixed with painting.
“We had to go, it was like, come on, Christian, we’re going,” Sally said. He wouldn’t budge. “That’s what he loved about art. He called it his flow state.”
Read more Colorado’s retired police and firefighters are still waiting for benefits approved in 2014
When they moved to the U.S., Christian gravitated toward sports and ditched the art supplies as a way to fit in, Sally said.
These days, those types of labels — jocks, nerds, artists — agitate her to no end. “It doesn’t matter. I don’t care. I don’t want the labels,” Sally said. Creative Grounds will be open to the public in the mornings until 2:30 p.m., when it will switch into a teens and young adults space, for anyone ages 14 to 22.
Sally Glass at Creative Grounds, a new nonprofit community art center and café set to open in Lyons on Sept. 16. (Cheney Orr, The Colorado Sun via Report for America)
“I want boys to be here. I want girls to want to be here. I want LGBTQ kids to be here. If you love God, you can come here. If you don’t believe in God, you can come here. You’re a Republican, come here. You’re a Democrat, come here,” she said during a tour of the new space. “If you’ve got no money come in. If you’ve got money come in, like, I don’t care.”
She wants Creative Grounds to be a space for that age group to escape the pressures of family, school and career. There are no grades, no chores. It’s a place for “a mental and emotional break from life,” she said, complete with a fountain, a teepee and a pottery room.
When I grow up
Christian’s art hangs everywhere around the space. There are his pastel lions behind the café and acrylic portraits in the halls. One image, a charcoal drawing of a grizzled man with a beard and a pipe hangs between windows — on the back, hidden from view, Christian signed it “Me as a Sailor.”
He never wanted to be a sailor. He wanted to be an artist. When he was 5 years old his class was told to come to school dressed as what they wanted to be when they grew up. He wore an apron with paint brushes sticking out of his pockets.
“I think I tied something around his neck,” Sally recalled. “He probably looked a little French,” she laughed. “It was the best we could do.”
While the focus for Creative Grounds is on providing teens a space, adults are welcome to come by for pottery lessons or a bite from the café during the first half of the day. Sundays are open to all ages all day, what they’re calling the “family day.”
The hours will take a little getting used to, Sally admitted. But they need to strike a balance between creating a completely free teen space and making sure it’s financially stable.
“We want this to go for a really long time. This is a legacy for Christian. It’s his memory,” Sally said. “I want it to keep on going after I die. I mean, I want it to go for a really, really long time.”