Neon artist Brian Bailey has done something many of us strive to do but at which few succeed: He's managed to almost seamlessly meld commerce and art.
"I was just in the sign business," says Bailey. "But, unexpectedly, I ended up making neon art. Up to that point, I never considered myself an artist; I just considered myself a sign maker. But I fell in love with it, and I thought, 'This is what I want to do.'"
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To a certain degree, Bailey stumbled into the neon sign business, almost by accident. The recession around 2007 had caused his business at the time -- a fashion boutique -- to falter.
"There was a guy in Fayetteville that I had bought signs from for my stores," he says. "I was going through a hard time, and he said, 'Would you want to come work with my sign business?' I didn't have a lot of options, and he even offered me a room in his home. That's how I started learning the sign business."
The neon sign business took him one step further. The niche job requires skills that often take years to master and are frequently passed from craftsman to craftsman. Area neon sign makers who were generous with their knowledge taught Bailey how to "bend glass" -- that is, use open flame in excess of 1000 degrees Fahrenheit to heat tubes of glass to a liquid state so they can be carefully bent into letters or shapes.
"The community is small," says Bailey of his fellow sign artists. "Guys do this until they're 70 or 80. Neon benders go out with their boots on."
Though Bailey's sign company started strictly as a business, his natural creativity was easily stimulated as he started designing more and more elaborate signs for his clients. When he created a neon piece for Crystal Bridges -- and followed that up by partnering with artist Kat Wilson to add a neon element to her art that she calls "Selfie Thrones" -- Bailey's quest for more artistic endeavors was ignited. Now, he says, he's just happy to "keep Northwest Arkansas lit.
"I just want to continue doing that and keep going with my art."
-- Lara Jo Hightower
NAN What's Up on 04/03/2020