Say It In Neon Exhibit Shows Beauty, History Of Light-Up Art

Plug in to the Northwest Neon exhibits at the Cheney Cowles Museum for a brighter outlook on life, starting with a free preview reception from 4-7 p.m. Friday.

More reflective than flashy, this double-header demonstrates neon as a sign of the times - past, present and future. “Sculpting with Light” in the main gallery presents the work of six regional artists who use neon in their creations, and “Writing with Light” in the rear gallery traces the use of neon from 1923 to the present. The history comes alive with an interactive display, video surveys, photos of local neon landmarks, a how-to tape about glass bending, and stories from local sign manufacturers and old-time glass-benders.

Spokane artists Steve Adams and Ken Yuhasz are joined by Seattle’s Peter David, Willem Volkersz from Bozeman, Mont., Dick Elliott from Ellensburg, and George Wray from Moscow, Idaho.

“There’s a lot of prejudice about neon, that anything with neon can’t be art,” said Barbara Racker, CCM’s curator of art. “But neon is a medium just like painting is a medium. Each artist uses it in a different way stylistically, and to say different things.”

Volkersz uses it autobiographically. “To Willem, neon is a symbol of American popular culture as it impressed him when his family emigrated from Amsterdam to Seattle in the 1950s,” said Racker. “He uses neon to mesh his Dutch heritage with American culture.”

Racker noted that Volkersz is one of very few artists who use neon to make outlined figures. He is not a glassmaker, but collaborates with a veteran tube-bender who follows detailed cartoons.

Volkersz refers to his love for travel, as seen in “After the Storm,” in which two neon figures paddle down a river of postcard memories. “This Is Your Life” shows a neon car flipping out of control into a huge paint-by-number landscape.

“That car looks a lot like the one my 20-year-old son drives,” said Volkersz, “and that’s what the piece is about for me - letting go of my son as he goes out into the world, and being unable to protect him.”

Elliott is known in the region for his fascination with reflectors - the kind used on bicycles - which he arranges in patterns on water tanks and buildings. He recently studied at the Neon and Tube Bending School in Portland, and now produces large metal disks covered in dense patterns of neon tubing. Some of the disks are the size of manhole covers, and one is nearly seven feet across. A skin of holographic vinyl behind the tubes refracts and reflects the neon light in mad prisms.

“Dick likes the effect of all this neon,” said Racker. “With him, neon is the work, and he enjoys it in abstract patterns and universal symbols.”

In a biographical backgrounder, Elliott describes his works in Northwest Neon as mandalas, “mystical maps of the cosmos,” and symbols “in a dream representing the dreamer’s search for completeness and self-unity.”

Buyers and collectors readily acquaint the name Steve Adams with graceful blown-glass goblets. The grace is still apparent, but the forms have altered dramatically in the work Adams shows in Northwest Neon. “Night Bloom” seems viscous and otherworldly with flared glass and neon stamens.

“To me, glass is the most beautiful and seductive substance on the planet,” said Adams, “and my fascination with glass has led me to neon. The fluid nature of blown glass and the glowing plasma of neon combine to make fantastic forms of light.” Adams credits fellow exhibitor Ken Yuhasz for assisting in his explorations with neon.

Yuhasz packs his “Self Portrait, Circa 1969” with typical humor and gusto. For this piece, “found objects” include the front of a “flower power” Volkswagen bus careening crazily through a wall.

An experienced graphic designer, Yuhasz explained that he became interested in neon sculpture through his training in sign-making. He’s fond of adding neon pizzazz to household appliances for a whimsical comment on utility and nostalgia.

West Sider Peter David is a master of free-blown, single-ended tubes which he draws into wavy branches and tendrils that glow from blue to orange. Delicate and mysteriously eerie skeletal forms emerge from nests of natural grapevine and pussywillow.

“Peter is mystical and spiritual in the creation of these creatures,” said Racker. “He feels or wants to have better connections with nature, and it’s funny that he had to go to such a technical medium to do it.”

George Wray started out painting and drawing, and he refers to that background in two examples from his “Stretcher” series. About the size of window frames, “Trace Stretcher” and “Luminous Support” glow with neon tubing embedded in translucent cast rubber.

And how did he get to neon? “I moved from representational painting to abstract,” said Wray, “and I had an urge for something intense - but I couldn’t get it with pigment. So I began by adding just a single tube of neon, incorporating it into my painting, and that just evolved into 3-D. From that point on, light - natural and manmade - has been the focus of my art work.”

Wray’s site-specific work is familiar to patrons of the Boise Art Museum and North Idaho College, and now illumines CCM’s main entrance. He and Yuhasz installed 68 feet of neon tubing in a snowstorm last November.

“Noire Planes” explores Wray’s interest in optical illusions. For this installation, he merged a neon rainbow with an 8-by-8-foot reflecting pool of water and a reflecting wall of black plexiglass. Filling the shallow pool required 80 gallons of water.

“I knew it was a water piece,” said Racker, “but I kept asking, ‘This doesn’t leak, right?’ because this is new carpet in here.

“This isn’t like hanging a painting show,” she said, “but it really worked!”

Museum hours are 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday; 10 a.m.-9 p.m. Wednesdays; and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. Admission is $4 for adults, $3 for seniors, $2.50 for youth age 6-16, and $10 for a family; children under 6 are free. Wednesdays are half price.

MEMO: Two sidebars appeared with the story: 1. The Northwest Neon exhibits open Friday at the Cheney Cowles Museum, 2316 W. First. “Sculpting with Light” continues through March 16, and “Writing with Light” continues through March 30.

2. Talking about neon Northwest Neon artists will talk about their work at the Cheney Cowles Museum’s free Wednesday Night Program at 7:30 p.m. on the following dates: Ken Yuhasz and Steve Adams, Jan. 29. Peter David, Feb. 26. George Wray and Dick Elliott, March 5.