Photo credit: J. Adrian Wylie
On a September morning, Susan Kizer opens the door to the cheerfully cluttered brick carriage house behind her Main St. home. There’s a light layer of sawdust on her work tables, and wood of all varieties—from South American purpleheart to a maple burl she discovered in an antique shop—surrounds her. Anchoring the space is “Tinkerbell”—her nickname for the 750-pound lathe she uses to create her one-of-a-kind wood pieces.
“I’ll stand here and look at all of this and just enjoy thinking about what it could become,” says Susan, who just participated in her third Ann Arbor Art Fair. She’s created multilayered vases out of scrap plywood, crafted containers featuring the artful patterns of ambrosia maple, and designed keepsake bowls from a decayed cherry tree.
It was twenty-five years ago that Susan and her husband Mike piled their three young sons into their minivan and drove from their condo in Ann Arbor to Chelsea in search of a “bigger house for the money.” They found it in their Craftsman-style home with the circa-1918 carriage house out back. Across the street from the Federal Screw Works factory and three blocks from downtown, Susan recalls the boys were “excited they’d each have their own bedroom.”
Now those boys are grown and living in different parts of the country and the factory is gone—Main Street Park is set to open next year in the long-empty lot. When she’s not working her day job as a graphic designer for a small Ann Arbor marketing firm, Susan says she’s happiest in her workshop.
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She discovered her passion for wood turning in 2019 when she bought a wooden pen–making kit. Mike—who’s had his own home repair and remodeling business since 2001—encouraged her to make even bigger pieces. Now Mike processes the raw wood that she turns into art.
When they’re not in the woodshop, the Kizers’ home offers front-row seats to the annual Chelsea Fair Parade. It’s just a short walk downtown to Sounds & Sights on Thursday Nights, the Chelsea Farmers Market, and Smokehouse 52 BBQ—one of Susan’s favorite restaurants. She’s grateful too, she says, that her dad lives nearby at Silver Maples of Chelsea.
Even though Chelsea’s growth means more noise and traffic on Main, the couple agrees that the city hasn’t lost its friendliness. “When people honk at you here, you’ll still get a wave,” Mike says.
As Susan eyes retirement, she says “the dream would be to pack up the van and do all the art fairs.” But she still has a lot to look forward to at home, especially the park that’s under construction across the street.
“It’s something for the whole community,” she says. “I’ll love to hear kids’ voices again.”
To see Susan’s creations, visit kizercowoodworks.com