I visited Jacob Fishman and the new Lightwriters public access neon studio in Chicago. I learned lots from his "Neon Engineers Handbook" and he has been one of my neon heros for years.
Of course, I was dazzled seeing all the Bruce Nauman pieces, patterns and rejects (Jacob is Nauman's main neon fabricator)- and I am a big Bruce Nauman fan. That copy of "mystic truths" has been all over the world and is the "living template" for the piece.
Jacob makes me wanna play more with radio.
I loved seeing the Bing neon happy sad outlets at Light Writers. It's so exciting that there is now a public access neon shop in Chicago - it's been needed for years with SAIC and UW students graduating and not having a place to work for years. I am gonna send some class proposals to Jacob and Zoell (his daughter) to return one day an teach a class :)
Next stop- Madison Wisconsin!