I hit the ground running at the start of 2026 with a neon project that pretty much consumed my January. The project was a custom neon sign for another artist, Pam Korman, who was getting ready for her first solo show, at the Automat, in Philadelphia. She is a photographer and interdisciplinary artist who contacted me about fabricating a neon sign with the title of her upcoming show, The Weight of Ghosts, that she could hang above the doorway of the exhibit. I often make neon for other artists, and I was excited to work with Pam and help bring her vision to life. The most important detail was the lettering style: her mother’s handwritten words.
I began the pattern-making process in my usual way, tracing the lettering onto a sheet of acetate and blowing the image onto my wall with an overhead projector.
Handwritten script is imperfect by nature, often having letters that are squished or tight, which can make translating them into neon lettering difficult. With a few small adjustments, I was mostly able to duplicate her mother’s writing exactly for the neon pattern.
Now that the pattern was drawn out, I was ready to bend the tubes. Given the design, I knew it was going to be challenging. When you are bending neon tubing, if you make a mistake or a “bad” bend, you cannot reheat it to fix it. You have to cut out the bad bend and splice in a new section of glass and re-bend it, which is much easier with larger lettering. I generally like to hide my splices between letters or behind another section of the letter, but because these letters were so small (most of them 2-3 inches) and also script, there weren’t many places to put splices where they could be hidden from view. This meant if I made a mistake on a bend, I would have to remake it, along with some of the good bends surrounding it, in order to achieve a nice, clean look.
Here’s a fun picture I took, using a “little person” toy for scale to show the size of the letters. 🙂
Because the lettering was small, it needed to be bent using 8mm diameter tubing (around 3/8″ wide) which is easier to overheat than larger sizes, so I had to be very careful to heat the glass gently, or risk damaging the phosphor coating on the inside of the tubing.
Below are some pictures that I took while I was working on making the letters. Without much room for error, I made sure to give myself plenty of time, working mindfully and slowly. It was very zen.
After I finished bending up the letters, I was ready to process them (fill them with gas).
Here is the word “Ghosts” on the processing table.
Things were going smoothly, and I had processed all the tubes, but while hooking them all up to “age in” the gas, a minor setback occurred…
The letter W broke! Wah. Back to the bending table I go, to remake it…
Below is the neon ageing in, after being filled with gas.
Once I was back on track, I painted the neon tubes with two coats of paint. The first was a layer of block-out paint, used to cover the sections between the letters that aren’t meant to show the light. Next, I covered over the block-out paint with a layer of white paint, because the client wanted those sections to blend in with the white color of the tubing.
After the neon was ready, the next step was to put everything together.
The theme of ‘connections’ runs through Korman’s work. In keeping with that, she wanted me to use a clear background, which would show the connections between the transformers, the wiring, and the words.
The sign required the use of 3 small transformers to power it.
And here it is, the finished sign, hanging on my studio wall before the client came to pick it up. I was very happy with the way it turned out, and so was she.
If you happen to be in the Philadelphia area between February 7th and February 28th, I encourage you to go see “The Weight of Ghosts” at The Automat.
Below is a description of the show from the gallery’s website:
Pam Korman: The Weight of Ghosts
Through experimental video, sculpture, and installation, Pam Korman explores traces of familial influence passing through a matrilineage. After a childhood marked by constant relocation, Korman became fascinated by how a procession of matriarchs shaped the framework of her identity. Everyday items from her many homes became imbued with shared family customs and inclinations while forming her sense of place.
