Neon lights have dotted famous landmarks such as the Moulin Rouge in Paris, the Las Vegas Strip, and New York City’s Times Square since the early 1900s. The commercialization of neon signs began with Georges Claude, a French engineer, at the Paris Motor Show in 1910. Gaining popularity internationally, the golden age of neon is documented as being the 1920s to 1960s with a revival in the 1980s. Mainstream TV series like Miami Vice helped to encourage this love for neon with many nightclubs, hotels, and bars adopting neon once again as a symbol of luxury.
The popularity of neon signs began because they were bright so people passing would be attracted to them even in the daytime. Today, LED signs are making strides past neon; however, some artists continue the tradition of custom works, and the craft is seeing another revival in contemporary sign-making.
Growing the Glow
Kody Shafer first started working with neon after high school when he happened upon a neon shop along Route 66 in Albuquerque. While photographing neon signs, he was struck by the workings of shop owner Robert Randazzo. He apprenticed under Randazzo, a master glass blower/electrician at Absolutely Neon during his time at the University of New Mexico.
Kody later moved to Brooklyn, New York, and began working at Brooklyn Glass. There he led installations around New York City at art museums, flagship retail stores, and special events. When Kody moved to Osaka, Japan, in 2018 he began working at Yoshi’s Neon Studio where he learned the styles and techniques of Japanese neon fabrication. Kody founded his own neon shop after returning to the United States. Located in Norwalk, Connecticut, Neon Spectacular specializes in neon lighting and artwork.
When Kody went to Japan for his training, he became engrossed in the history of neon signs in Japan. Tokyo has seen a renaissance of neon signs just as in areas of the United States. During the Japanese economic bubble in the 1980s, “They would get huge rooftop signs. It would be pretty normal to get an order of over 1000 neon tubes in a month,” says Shafer. Nowadays, much of the work in Japan is refurbishing those neon signs and was the foundation for Shafer’s Japanese neon education.
Little Light of Mine
Kody’s knowledge and Neon Spectacular’s capabilities allow for 28 different color variations and shapes as small as 2 inches. Neon signs are made entirely by hand with methods staying largely unchanged throughout history. These traditional methods require soft lead glass to be heated, bent, and twisted by hand using a torch. Then they are cooled and fused together. Later, they are filled with various gases to achieve the selected colors.
Electricity comes in when pure-iron electrodes surrounded by a glass jacket are welded to both ends of the tube and wired to the transformer using high-voltage cables. Photons, tiny, invisible packets of light energy, and the smallest possible unit of light, provide energy that causes a chemical reaction within the tube while adding light, giving the sign a colored glow.
To maintain its shape and structure the entire sign is mounted to a backing panel. Neon signs made by Neon Spectacular can be mounted directly to the wall which allows the full effect of the glow to radiate around the room. Glass frames are often referred to as “dead frames” or “skeleton frames” and can be another option. In this type of mounting, neon tubes are glued to a structural glass frame that encases the tubing.
Shafer’s experience in Japanese neon studios has given him a different perspective on the process of making signs. “What I found very interesting about the Japanese way for neon specifically is, in the United States when people are bending neon, I notice the style is, you bend unit by unit.” Each glass tube is fabricated one at a time and each are completed before moving to the next. “Whereas in Japan, they’ll do all the bending at once and then they’ll put in all the electrodes in at once, and then you do all the pumping at once. It’s blocked into sections, and I found that to be very helpful when I was learning,” explains Shafer.
A Bright Future
The chance meeting that led Kody to a career and a life-long passion was the ultimate luck of the draw. All of his eye-opening experiences inform his current practice and are passed on to new groups, allowing the tradition to continue for years to come. “I can’t think of much that is more beautiful than Neon,” Kody says. “It’s like lightning in a tube.”
