March Issue 2001
Neon Masters: The Art of Neon Glass at Waterworks Visual Arts Center
"The darkened galleries will be filled with glowing neon art," says Denny Mecham, Executive Director of the Waterworks Visual Arts Center in Salisbury, NC. Opening March 16, the exhibition will be on view through May 20. Five artists represented by over 40 works of art crafted in gas, glass, and light are the subject of the Waterworks Visual Art Center's new exhibition Neon Masters: The Art of Neon Glass. This exhibition brings together a group of artists described as "neon masters" whose art and talent in this specialized area is "too often unrecognized," states Mecham.
Neon is an inert, colorless gas which, when electrically, discharged, creates an intense glow visible at some distance. Widely used in outdoor advertising throughout the world, neon is commonly seen encased in glass tubing and molded into myriad shapes and colors.
The five artists: Jacob Fishman and Petrie Fishman of Chicago; Morgan Crook of Columbia, SC, and North Carolinians David Wilson of Celo and David Smith of Asheville, all have been associated with the Penland School of Crafts in the North Carolina mountains and bring to this specialized art a variety of experience and backgrounds.
Jacob and Petrie Fishman, who are husband and wife, have been working with neon for almost 35 years, longer than any of the other artists in the exhibition. His previous training was in electrical engineering and photography and she was formerly a ceramist and printmaker.
Morgan Crook is a former mechanical engineer and became involved with neon by chance, taking a course in neon offered in Columbia, SC, where he lives.
David Wilson studied and practiced glassblowing for a dozen years before he began working with neon and combining experiments in both mediums.
David Smith began his career in neon in 1994 as a student novice in one of Jacob Fishman's summer neon sessions at the Penland School. Prior to that he had no formal art or craft training and little exposure to contemporary art, but he has been commended on the rapid growth and evolution of his work.
Developed some 90 years ago, the technology for illuminating neon in clear glass tubes was put into widespread commercial use after WWI, reports art critic Tom Patterson of Winston-Salem, whose essay Glowing in the Dark: Five Contemporary Neon Artists accompanies the Waterworks' exhibition. Patterson says that by 1950, the neon sign had become "an iconic emblem of American commercial culture and was coming into widespread use internationally. Given its inherent visual power, it was inevitable that neon would eventually come to be used for more purely artistic purposes, as it did in this country during the late 1960s."
Patterson observes that the five artists showing at the Waterworks "are among those who are carrying the art and craft of neon into a new millennium." In addition to their common bond of being Penland alumni, Patterson says "they're mutually aware of interested in and, in some cases, influenced by each other's art. For that reason, among others, it seems fitting that their work should be shown and considered together."
Patterson reveals that Jacob Fishman learned how to work with neon by apprenticing with a commercial neon signmaker, "and his subsequent artistic collaborations with his wife have been, in many cases, directly influenced by commercial neon signage. That background taught him how to bend glass tubes with great precision, a skill that strongly influenced the development of their art's graphic vocabulary."
The Fishmans use other materials and mediums in their work as well, including handmade tubing, painted backgrounds, reflective surfaces and animation, all of which results, Patterson declares, in "the sheer enjoyment they find in the processes of manipulating glass and creating spectacular effects with light and color."
Patterson reports that former mechanical engineer Morgan Crook says "he has always had a special affinity for craft... His recent work deals with natural themes and subjects, with an emphasis on subtly detailed flowers and plant forms," drawing inspiration from the forest lands surround the Penland School. He aims to convey "a feel for the energy in the natural world around us," and produces works on a smaller scale than the other artists in the exhibition, usually wall-mounted or table-top pieces measuring about one foot square.
As a technical representative for an international supplier of neon materials, Crook's job takes him to neon shops across the country and around the world, giving him the opportunity to remain in touch with all the technical and aesthetic developments in the field, This information, Patterson notes, Crook shares with the other artists when they get together for workshops at Penland.
David Wilson had a dozen years experience in glassblowing before he entered the world of neon art and combined the two mediums. That shift in his work came in 1993, Patterson observes, when Wilson assisted Jacob Fishman in leading the first neon-working session at Penland. "Since then," Patterson declares, "he has developed an array of dazzling special effects that he used in his work and shares with other glass and neon artists. Working with neon and other gases - including argon, krypton, and xenon - has enabled him to fill his blown glass forms with glowing, colored, animated light... His neon plasma sculptures are electrical arcs... constantly in motion, wriggling like countless miniature lightning bolts."
David Smith, who has been practicing neon art just since 1994 and according fellow artist David Wilson, takes a "very experimental approach and is very inventive." Emphasizing his desire to make a statement with each of his works, Smith says they are inspired by "a combination of nature and modem life in the USA."
Critic Patterson writes that Smith "typically addresses these themes by juxtaposing neon-filled glass tubes and other visible technical components with natural materials, such as stones and rough shards of un-milled wood." Some of his works are interactive, their light components responding to touch and/or sound. Patterson says that while Smith occasionally maps out a plan for creating a piece, more often than not he works intuitively. "I've got piles of materials lying around," Smith says, "and when an idea suddenly hits me, it all comes together." Tom Patterson is a free-lance writer, visual art critic, and independent curator who lives in Winston-Salem, NC.
During this exhibition period, Artwork by Rowan County Elementary School Students will be featured in the Young People's Gallery.
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