My adventures in neon

Have you ever stopped to look at a neon sign? I mean really look at one—long enough to notice that it is made of glass tubes intricately hand bent and folded, and filled with a beam of plasma. That is, assuming you are looking at a real neon sign and not an LED replica. Can you tell the difference? Did you know there was a difference? I ask because I didn’t. I had never stopped to consider why it was called a “neon” sign until I ended up learning how to make one just after my graduation. 

I spent much of my time at MIT overwhelmingly anxious about exams and seeking mental refuge in creative spaces. After a DayQuil- and Monster-fueled p-set session, I would recharge my ability to process heat transfer or differential equations in places less inclined to demand a single correct solution. Course 4 studios, with assignments like “Create a one-person enclosure” or “Make a lamp,” challenged the existence of correct solutions at all and pushed you to consider how design made a person feel. As a student in 2.007, I spent every spare hour I had in the Pappalardo Design Lab, machining, tinkering, and learning the woes of “It all fit in CAD.” I loved being there so much I even returned my junior year as an apprentice, and I got to teach others how to bring their designs from the page to real life. Throughout my time at MIT, I tried to always have at least one hands-on class per semester to keep my brain from turning to stressed-out goo.

SCOTT SPENCE/PAPPALARDO LAB TEAM

Then came covid, and learning was reduced to Zoom calls, exams, p-sets, and grades. Professors, instructors, and TAs made incredible efforts to keep traditional courses engaging, and I got to help develop the at-home version of 2.007. But the spaces that had kept me sane were all but inaccessible. Like many classmates, I resolved to just keep my head down, plow through to graduation, and then maybe focus on trying to be happy. 

I had saved some money through college, dead set on taking some kind of international adventure after I graduated. But as June 2021 came closer and closer, it became painfully clear that was not on the table. As a lover of national parks, audiobooks, and beef jerky, I settled for a cross-­country road trip. I had accepted an offer to design power tools at Milwaukee Tool in September and felt compelled to make the most of that summer before I “began working until I died,” as I would tell those who asked. Since I was in withdrawal after so much time away from creative practices, I polled my friends for ideas on classes or workshops I could take on my trip.

We have worked to expand the neon space and teach those who are curious to learn about this practice that is half fine art, half high-voltage mad-science chemistry.

One day two friends told me separately that they had always wanted to learn how to make neon signs. To my 21-year-old self, this was a clear message from the universe. I had spent my whole life walking past neon signs without ever really considering them. I suddenly, desperately had to know more. One of these neon-­curious friends mentioned knowing someone who’d taken a class from a man named Juan Ortega, who has been teaching neon in his California home since he was laid off from a sign-manufacturing plant in 2008. In the summer of 2021, after a road trip from Boston to Seattle, I made my way to Murrieta, California, and stayed with Juan and his family for five days as he taught me the basics of his craft: how to cut glass tubes with a file, draw patterns, and bend double-backs, 90s, and smooth curves. He taught me how to weld glass together seamlessly and introduced me to the complex science of filling pieces. At the end of the week, I had made my first complete and mounted sign, which read “HOWDY” in big, bold no-vacancy red letters.

NEON SIGNS FROM THE UNIVERSE

I was irreparably hooked. There must be some part of my brain that never evolved past a common moth ancestor, because looking at neon gives me a simple childish joy. When I pull the string and see curves and loops of glass filled with a clean string of plasma, for a moment everything just feels brilliant. I left Juan’s house needing to continue but having no idea how. I made my move to Wisconsin shortly after, and my landlord had a very clear stance regarding large open flames and molten glass on the premises. My searches online for local neon shops revealed few left in Milwaukee, confirming my growing awareness that old-school neon was a dying trade slowly being replaced by the scourge of cheap, plastic-heavy LEDs. 

I heard through a coworker about the Milwaukee Makerspace and reached out to see if they’d ever consider housing neon equipment. In yet another twist of fate, a man named Bret Daniel who’d taught neon at UCSD had just received approval to move his ribbon burner, cross-fires, and torch into the space. I got back over the fires, and soon enough I was going in religiously to practice—bending patterns over and over until they looked right, finding calm in the hands-on practice. Gradually, I got comfortable with taking neon requests from friends and family. Then I became confident enough to sell original art pieces to strangers. All the while, Bret and I have worked to expand the neon space and teach those who are curious to learn about this practice that is half fine art, half high-­voltage mad-­science chemistry. We teach the basics to members for free on Wednesday nights, and I love the opportunity to pass on this joyful “dying trade.” 

If I’ve drawn one lesson from my adventures in neon, it’s that we should seek opportunities to learn with zero expectations or required outcomes. Whole lifetimes of interest are hiding in the objects and phenomena you walk past every day. Neon, the mentors I was lucky to find, and the students I am fortunate to teach have reminded me that I love learning. Things like the weight of exams, the stress of a future you are supposed to be figuring out, and the expectations you hold for yourself can’t be allowed to suck the joy out of the simple human pleasure of being fascinated. 

Be the moth. Marvel at the light. Then go make the light. 

Rosalie (Rosie) Phillips ’21, a mechanical engineer at Agiliti, launched her business Neon Signs from the Universe in 2024. She now knows that neon signs are named for the noble gas that gives off red-orange light when electrically stimulated.

Editor’s note: The Pappalardo Lab’s “Lock the Quill” podcast, which serves up “interviews and antics from the most wicked lab on campus” is available on many podcast apps, including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and Amazon Music.