Ann Arbor glass artist to host sale benefiting public art

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.

Ann Arbor glass artist and philanthropist Larry Nisson will host an art show and sale in his backyard garden on Sept. 21, with all proceeds benefiting the Ann Arbor Art Center‘s Art in Public program.

The show and sale will take place from noon-5 p.m. at 1227 Lutz Ave. in Ann Arbor. The sale will include Larry Nisson’s own works, as well as paintings by Ann Arbor artist Wendy Bauer-Braun, in the striking surroundings of Nisson’s garden, which is filled with his art. 

Nisson and his wife Lucie Nisson are the primary supporters of Art in Public, which has spearheaded numerous public art initiatives including murals, alley installations, and paintings on public planters and manholes. Nisson says his interest in supporting public art in Ann Arbor began about 10 years ago, when he and his wife were traveling through numerous cities that all had more public art than Ann Arbor.

“That didn’t seem right,” he says, noting that Ann Arbor voters had also turned down a millage proposal that would have established direct funding for public art around the same time. “… Lucie and I said, ‘Why don’t we as artists try to put art around Ann Arbor?'”

Nisson says he’s been gratified to see the positive response to the public art initiatives he’s supported in Ann Arbor, particularly from some of the community’s most vulnerable members. He recounts an interaction he had with a woman who was staying at the Robert J. Delonis Center, downtown Ann Arbor’s homeless shelter, about a mural the Nissons funded on a railroad overpass near the center. The painting by TreeTown Murals says “Welcome” in bright colors.

“[The woman said,] ‘I saw the welcome sign and I felt welcomed in Ann Arbor for the first time,'” Nisson says.

He adds that “people in dire financial straits don’t always have a lot of beauty around.”

“These are people who don’t have a lot of money, but they get to enjoy the art as much as the richest person in Ann Arbor,” he says. “Everyone gets to enjoy it.”

Nisson says he’s hosting the sale because he believes that “when you give, you get.”

“We like to get stuff done,” he says. “We know what art’s done for us. Why not share it?”