GETTING STARTED Teresa Escobar is no stranger to the neon world; she’s been bending glass for seven years now. Her favorite thing is lighting up her creation for the first time. “You always have a pretty solid idea of how is going to look at the end, but once it’s on it is ohhh-so-magical!” she said. “I do love the zen space that I enter when I’m holding the glass directly on the fire.” Teresa has lived in New York for a little...
“There's an undeniable attractive quality to the glow of neon that can't be replicated through other mediums,” Jude said. “I love the idea of being able to sculpt with light as an extension of the glass I'm working with—I'm mesmerized by how three-dimensional neon is in all of my encounters. That never gets old for me.” HOW IT STARTED Jude Abu Zaineh is a Palestinian-Canadian artist and brings a unique perspective to her art with her upbringing being in the Middle...
“Neon has taught me so much about patience, failure, and perseverance. It's the hardest thing I've ever learned how to do—but is also the most rewarding when you get it right. I feel like there's no standing still with neon, you're either learning, or backsliding, and that's an exciting place to be.”- Sarah Blood GETTING STARTED Born and raised in the UK but now a resident of New York, Sarah Blood has been creating neon ever since she bought her...
Since taking a neon class from the University of Wisconsin-Madison in 2015, Stephanie has been working on the enigma that is neon. “It is incredibly challenging, which makes it all the more exciting when accomplishing a piece,” she said. “Neon is one of those mediums that you can't really have a finished product when you make a serious mistake - it must be structurally sound to be bombarded well and last a long time. Neon is like solving a puzzle...
Kate Hush’s journey with neon started in 2012 and she hasn’t looked back since. “I can’t imagine doing what I do in any other medium, the color, the light, the interaction with the environment around it,” Kate said. “There’s a big attraction factor to it. Not to knock on other materials, but you put neon next to a photograph, no one’s looking at the photograph.” ABOUT Being a film buff, Kate’s artistic journey has most been influenced by actresses Kathleen Turner and...
“When neon is on, we can't help but be pulled into its vortex of excitation. Why is that? What is in there that satiates the eyes?” Since 2008, that’s the question Kacie Lees has been asking herself as she is captivated by the draw of neon’s glow as a neon bender. ABOUT: “My work is non-traditional. I make experimental color sandwiches and multiples in an effort to encapsulate time and record motion,” she said. “I often say that neon is a time...
She was born around neon, and we wouldn’t be surprised if she was blowing glass before she started talking—yes you guessed it we are talking about Roxy Rose. HOW IT STARTED Roxy’s grandfather started a neon manufacturing company back in 1946 in Glendale, CA so needless to say, she knows the ins and outs of the neon world. She started glassblowing full time in 1978, giving her 40+ years of experience in this world. “My favorite aspect of neon is that...
“It was neon’s powerful glow that hooked me-but the fire is what sealed my fate,” these are the words that our next She Bends artist highlight, Alleson Buchanan said as she was describing her love for neon. HOW IT STARTED Alleson’s love for neon began when she was an undergrad at Cascade College in Portland. She saw artist Joseph Kosuth's "Five Words in Orange Neon" at the Portland Art Museum. Alleson was immediately “drawn to the glow.” “There was a palpable magnetism...
Our next artist highlight is Brooke Barttelbort. Brooke is a cat-mom to Whisky and plant-mom to her ever-growing collection of plants, she is a lover of museums but also street art, and enjoys a good spooky movie or haunted house (perfect timing for this blog), as she is a Halloween baby. When Brooke isn’t bending glass, she loves to travel and take photographs of her adventures. You can find her listening to true crime, hanging out in a tiki bar,...
The next artist that we are highlighting is the one and only, Meryl Pataky. HOW IT STARTED Young Meryl opted into taking a neon class at The Academy of Art when she was getting her undergrad in Sculpture. Before neon she was used to welding, silversmithing and working with materials that proposed to be a challenge for her. “I have always been drawn to materials that offer me resistance in some way,” Meryl said. “It was a challenge. I was, and...
