I’ve wanted to paint this for well over a decade, but I needed time to discover the right approach. Over the past year, I began wondering — what would the Hollywood Sign look like as a giant neon? There was precedent — at the turn of the millennium, the sign was ablaze in color — minus the tubes. So, with this as a general guide… I began to reinvent… on a large scale.
Sometimes… the connection finds you. While researching neon signs, I discovered the Blue Swallow Motel. My attention immediately turned to the swooping bird… reminiscent of Twitter’s logo. Most 140-character-missives dissolve into the collective unconscious… some, as we now know, can change history.
I’ve been wanting to create a piece exploring Anthony Weiner’s pseudonym, ‘Carlos Danger‘, for ages — and the Blue Swallow triggered a memory. I met Weiner back in 2011, just as his first scandal hit the airwaves. Weiner is an ice hockey goalie, for those who don’t know. Clearly, Anthony had his hands full, so the team needed an emergency substitute keeper — not uncommon in beer league.
So there I am, half suited-up and ready to skate — when a distraught Weiner shows up in long baggy basketball shorts and a rather unseemly tank top. He began whining to the captain, who was sitting next to me getting his skates on. Needing the “stress relief”, he pleaded for the crease. I told the captain, “your team, your choice. If I bounce, you need to give me 30 bucks and a six pack.”
Well, the captain paid up, I got undressed and went home. The next day, I received a call, “sorry man, I wish you played, we lost 12-3. I’m trying to get a municipal contract out of him, so you know how it goes.” Even beer league hockey is ruled by politics.
I digress. Here is the dangerous process from start-to-finish captured in time lapse, with a soundtrack courtesy of my man MH the Verb. Read on for the creative process…
At their root, all signs exist to provide information. Some hope to offer a warm welcome. Great signs do way more, they evoke emotion and often memories.
For those of you in the community of people who had the privilege of spending a summer, or more, at Camp Echo Lake in upstate Warrensburg, NY, there are a series of signs that, when seen in sequence, take each and every one of you from happiness to bliss.
I decided to invent a neon painting. The concept: a cowboy on a bucking horse, swangin’ his Indiana Jones style whip, atop electric grass, with the mighty Tetons far off in the distance… my result? “The Neon Cowboy” — not to be confused with “The Electric Horseman“.
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