Ann Arbor artist to open glass garden to public for charity sale

This story is part of a series about arts and culture in Washtenaw County. It is made possible by the Ann Arbor Art Center, the Ann Arbor Summer Festival, Destination Ann Arbor, Larry and Lucie Nisson, and the University Musical Society.

From noon-5 p.m. on Sunday, Sept. 15, glassblower Larry Nisson will exhibit his work in a garden show and sale at his Ann Arbor home.
 
Nisson’s home and surrounding garden, located at 1227 Lutz Ave., have themselves evolved into an elaborate work of art in the years that Nisson and his wife Lucie, a mosaicist, have lived there.

Patrick DunnLarry Nisson in his garden.
Both the private back garden and the front lawn are studded with vibrantly colored sculptures, ornaments, and glass of all kinds — and on Sunday, much of that work will be for sale.
 
All proceeds from the sale will benefit the Ann Arbor Art Center’s (A2AC) Art in Public program, for which the Nissons have long served as major benefactors. For years, the Nissons have advocated for the importance of public art, though Larry expresses their goal modestly.
 
"We’re [just] trying to get more and more people to put up art," he says.
 
Nisson says that made the decision to host a garden show a no-brainer. He jumped at the chance to provide the A2AC with a bit of extra funding.

Natalia HoltzmanLarry Nisson's Ann Arbor garden.
Nisson is also one of the primary founders and organizers of the Westside Art Hop, a now-annual event in which artists exhibit and sell their work from their homes, yards, and driveways. The Art Hop used to take place twice a year, but due to numerous complications — University of Michigan football traffic not least among them — it now occurs only once, in the summer.
 
Nisson says that change made the fall season open up with opportunity. He says he hopes his garden show "serves a lot of needs," from giving the West Side neighborhood a fall art event to raising funds for the A2AC.
 
There’s a more personal factor at play here, too.
 
"If you’re an artist," Nisson says, "you want to do a number of things: you want to create your art, which is the fun part, and you want to share your art."
 
Painter Wendy Bauer Braun will also exhibit her work at the garden show, as will Nisson’s 11-year-old next-door neighbor, Mira Brugeman, who began selling her work at the Westside Art Hop several years ago and has seen considerable success, Nisson says.
 
Braun is also responsible for planting and caring for the plants in Nisson’s elaborate gardens, where flowers intermingle with glass sculptures in bursts of vivid colors. Braun, Nisson says, "paints with flowers."

Patrick DunnLarry Nisson's Ann Arbor garden.
As a whole, the garden show will be a kind of harvest for Nisson’s blown-glass pieces. Finding new homes for those pieces will allow him to make more.
 
"You want to sell your art because you don’t want it to be on the shelf in your basement," he says.
 
Whether it’s his own work or others’, Nisson wants art to be seen and appreciated, not hidden away.

Natalia Holtzman is a freelance writer based in Ann Arbor. Her work has appeared in publications such as the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Los Angeles Review of Books, Literary Hub, The Millions, and others.

Photos by Natalia Holtzman and Patrick Dunn.