Triangle artist opens NC studio where the ‘glassy’ people go

When the closing bell rings at Carrboro Elementary School, gifted education specialist Sam Nguyen follows her passion down a “rabbit hole” of art, color and glass.

In September, she opened Say It With Glass, at South Green shopping center in Carrboro.

The storefront — the former Craftboro Brewing Co. space — packs in a bevy of color, from specks and shards of glass arranged in containers on the art bar to fancy glass sheets crafted in a spectrum of hues and textures.

In the window, a Nguyen creation inspired by a broken beekeeping frame is filled with a repetition of blue, iridized and muffled glass “honeycombs.” It hangs beside work for sale by glass artists from the Triangle and beyond.

Every scrap of glass, no matter how small or oddly shaped, is saved, Nguyen said.

Say It With Glass is just a short walk from The ArtsCenter and the funky shops in downtown Carrboro, but Nguyen says her shop fills a niche for adults, neurodivergent thinkers and other “glassy” people.

“I think a lot of people struggle with doing art because you have high standards for yourself. If you’re an adult with ADHD, like, you’re not good enough,” Nguyen said. “But I’m all about dismantling that and helping people connect through art. I don’t care if your art is good or not. How did it feel? Do you like what you did? That’s what we’re all about here.”

A place to tell stories, create art together

Nguyen’s family moved from Canada to the United States when she was 8 and her father got a job in Research Triangle Park. She’s been a teacher for 14 years — 10 of them in the Chapel Hill-Carrboro City Schools — and recently gained her U.S. citizenship.

Now 35, she and her husband live in south Durham with their two children, ages 5 and 9, but they want to move to Carrboro, she said.

“I feel really, really strongly about this community and what it’s about. Even just a few blocks over in Chapel Hill, it was just a very different vibe,” Nguyen said. “I love the people here, so this is where I wanted to make roots.”

Nguyen got the idea to work with glass three years ago after her husband whacked a mosquito on the kitchen window, creating a “giant circular break.” Instead of calling a repair person, she went online to find a solution and discovered a world of glass art.

“That’s how my brain likes to work,” Nguyen said. “It started with a creative problem that led to connecting with a new art form that I didn’t even know existed. … And so the more I got into it, the more I was like, this is awesome.”

She joined the American Glass Guild and started holding pop-up “sip and solder” events in Orange and Durham counties and in her home studio. Earlier this year, she went looking for a permanent space.

Say It With Glass, at 101 Two Hills Drive, still offers sip and solder classes, where students can grab a drink, choose from patterns and materials, and take get a quick lesson in the process. The class that lasts about three hours, with plenty of time to mingle, Nguyen said.

There are also kids camps, studio memberships and an Art Bar for small, independent projects, along with for-sale art glass pieces and beaded jewelry imported from Colombian indigenous women’s groups. Nguyen offers a repair service, crafts custom home decor and is becoming one of the largest East Coast suppliers of glass, she said.

There are two distinct groups in the Triangle, Nguyen said. One group is older, established and “very experienced stained-glass artists” with private studios, while the other is younger, more socially connected, and “doing really cool, weird things with stained glass art.”

In December, she has invited Alvaro Maury, an American Glass Guild member from Hillsborough, to lead a glass-painting class. That’s one way she can bring together “all of the different glassy people here,” Nguyen said.

It’s also a way to shatter the stereotype that art isn’t good unless it’s perfect, she added.

“I believe 100% when it comes to art, the only good art is art that has a little story attached to it, even if it’s janky,” Nguyen said.

South Green adds Beer Study, pierogis

South Green, a 45,000-square-foot shopping center on 2 acres, has had a few businesses come and go since it replaced the old Rogers-Triem Electric building several years ago.

Last year, pizza restaurant Coronato and the Oasis Cigar Lounge next door closed after a dispute over second-hand smoke that led to a lawsuit against the cigar bar and South Green owner Woodhill NC LLC. Craftboro Brewing Depot closed earlier this year.

But the parking lot was full last week, and Woodhill NC partner Gary Hill said only one vacant storefront remains. The glass studio’s neighbors now include an animal hospital, dry cleaner, salon, and yoga studio.

In April, The Flying Pierogi Delicatessen began serving Polish and German street food at South Green, and in December, the Beer Study will move from the west end of Franklin Street after 12 years.

“We think the mix that we have works best for that community, and it was really what the market would bear,” Hill said about the current tenants. “We’re very pleased with what’s on the ground now.”

For-sale condos, commercial planned

Soon, more people could live and work across the parking lot.

A Carrboro Town Council public hearing is pending for South Green Flats, a 3-acre project with 57 for-sale condos, six small, for-sale commercial spaces, a community garden, outdoor kitchen and dog park behind South Green.

Woodhill NC sold the land last year to Legacy Real Property Group, which also developed Shelton Station, with 94 apartments and commercial space on North Greensboro Street in downtown Carrboro.

Legacy Real Property Group partner Mark Moshier said the condos could be from 600 to over 1,300 square feet, meeting a need for more affordable workforce housing. The buildings would have three stories of residential above ground-floor commercial space.

Construction could begin early next year.