Joy Bloser is the Associate Objects Conservator at The Menil Collection, in Houston, TX, specializing in the care of contemporary art. Her research interests include treatment strategies for polymeric materials and built networks of care in conservation. She was formerly the Assistant Conservator for Public Outreach at the MFA Boston and the David Booth Fellow in Sculpture Conservation at The Museum of Modern Art in New York. She holds an MS in Conservation and MA in Art History from NYU and a BA in Chinese and Art History from Middlebury College. She is the Assistant Program Chair for AIC’s Contemporary Art Network (CAN) and co-organizer of CAN Conversations.
Chankalun, is a Hong Kong-born neon and multidisciplinary artist whose work explores the intersections of traditional neon craftsmanship, sustainability, and contemporary cultural narratives. Trained in set design, exhibition curation and multimedia at Wimbledon College of Art and Parsons School of Design, her unique practice merges neon with unconventional materials to create immersive installations that challenge the boundaries between art, design, and environmental consciousness. Known as an “art-vocate” by National Geographic, her art extends beyond aesthetics – using neon to address important social and environmental issues while inspire change.
Jacob Fishman, co-owner of Lightwriters, Inc. What started as a childhood fascination with glass became a lifelong quest to preserve and master the craft of neon. Growing up in 1950’s Chicago, Fishman was captivated by the myriad properties of glass. The way it could be shaped and shatter was especially attractive, but what became his main fascination was its property to filter and reflect light. The exploration of light led first to his love of photography in a rudimentary darkroom in his parents’ home, then to lighting and installation working on stage crew for his high school’s theater productions. Atier earning a degree in electrical engineering his interest in neon became his focus. The trade was still highly guarded, and finding a teacher took a dogged determination. Once he found a mentor on the South Side of Chicago, Jacob’s obsession with learning the craft took flight. He quickly became so proficient a glass bender that he was soon a highly sought-after talent around Chicago. By the time he opened Lightwriters Neon in 1977 with wife and partner Petrie Fishman, he found community with local fabricators working in everything from scientific to stained glass, broadening the applications of neon technology across the medium and working to provide high caliber lighting for film and public spaces. Two of Jacob and Petrie’s adult children are now carrying the torch, working in glass and neon. Now in his fifth decade of working in neon, Jacob’s main focus is fabricating and preserving artworks for museums and private collectors around the world.
Briana Feston-Brunet has been the Time-based and Variable Media Conservator at the Hirshhorn. Since joining the department in 2015, her work has focused on large scale media installations, performance art, and computer-based artworks. She manages the Hirshhorn’s Artist Interview Program and serves as the museum’s representative in the SI wide TBMA group and NFT Working Group. Prior to joining the Hirshhorn, she held graduate fellowships and positions at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, the J. Paul Getty Museum, and Sèvres-Cité de la Céramique, in Sèvres, France. Briana earned her AB in French Literature and Classical and Near Eastern Archaeology from Bryn Mawr College, and her MA in art history and a certificate in conservation at New York University, with a focus in modern and contemporary art.
Tommy Gustaffschiöld, has been working with neon since 1994. The first 15 years it was mainly wholesale for the sign industry. But as artists slowly got the eye for neon the medium quickly became popular and is rising. He is specialized in large-diameter tubes and coating after bending which was very common in Europe when neon was big. When time is on his side, he does his own neon art, but being the only neon glassblower in Scandinavia, he is mostly busy making commercial signs and helping other artists worldwide. Lately, he’s also been helping set up a small neon shop in one of the hot shops in Sweden, Boda Glasbruk in the Kingdom of crystal at The Glassfactory Museum. So soon enough there will be more artists caring for neon themselves.
Taylor Healy is the Assistant Conservator of Media at the Art Institute of Chicago. She facilitates the conservation, preservation, and exhibition of time-based media artworks in the collection. She holds an MS in Conservation and MA in Art History from New York University's Conservation Center and a BFA in Sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University.
Kacie Lees, Chicago-based metal worker, neon artist, and printmaker who explores the relationship between natural phenomena, human perception, and time. She shares her expertise through innovative, media-rich neon courses from coast to coast at institutions including New York University, the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, UrbanGlass NYC, and the Museum of Neon Art in Los Angeles. Lees’ 2021 text, Neon Primer, continues to be the go-to manual for creating neon artworks, with first edition copies available in distinguished collections such as at the Joan Flasch Artist Book Collection and Archive (Chicago, IL), the Scholes Library at Alfred University (Alfred, NY), and the Contemporary Rare books collection at the Corning Museum of Glass’ Rakow Research Library (Corning, NY). Lees has just returned from the prestigious Museum of Glass Artist in Residence Program (Tacoma, WA), and her work will be featured in the forthcoming Fall 2025 issue of New Glass Review.
Ellen Moody is a Project Specialist at the Getty Conservation Institute, where she develops projects to advance modern and contemporary art conservation and support its practitioners. Her favorite research activities are working with artists, especially those experimenting with materials and technologies, and creating documentation, especially of artworks with elusive qualities. Before joining the GCI, she worked at the Museum of Modern Art in New York as an objects conservator for 7 years, where she often felt out of her depth when tending to the museum’s neon artworks. She completed graduate internships at the Brooklyn Museum, the Kröller-Müller Museum, and the Metropolitan Museum of Art. She holds an M.S. in Objects and Preventive Conservation from the Winterthur/University of Delaware Program in Art Conservation, and a B.A. in art history from Pomona College. She is currently working with local colleagues to form the Conservation Association of Los Angeles.
Zoelle Nagib, co-owner of Lightwriters, Inc. grew up surrounded by neon and glass as the daughter of neon artists and fabricators Jacob and Petrie Fishman. By her teens she was a published beadmaker but chose to steer away from the family business to pursue photography in college. Atier earning her degree from Rochester Institute of Technology in 2005, she tried just about every crati under the sun while living and working at Penland School of Cratis. Zoelle’s multidisciplinary work has explored themes of emotional weight and political responsibility, which has only deepened since becoming a mother. Her foray into neon properly began in 2019 and has been a substantial catalyst to further delve into her queer identity and the qualities of neon that she was captivated by as a child.
Meryl Pataky is an artist, curator, and educator in the Bay Area. She has been working in Neon for 13 years and in that time has founded She Bends, an organization dedicated to building a more equitable future for neon through public education, curatorial projects and artist programs that foster diversity and sustainability. She Bends, and Meryl in her work, pushes the boundaries of neon beyond the confines of commercial signage and into the realm of Fine Art.
Mike Sweet Mike Sweet has been closely involved with the manufacturing and distribution of neon sign and art materials in the United States for more than 40 years. After graduating from the University of Minnesota in 1983 with a degree in business administration, Mike began his career in sales and marketing at FMS Corporation. He became president of FMS Sign Products Division in 2003. FMS Sign Products is a family owned andoperated manufacturing and distribution business founded by Mike’s grandfather in 1946. Mike’s career and experience give him a unique perspective on the history of neon sign materials in North America over the past half century, and what that could mean for neon materials in the years to come.
Tom Wartman is a master neon sign maker and the director of Neonworks, a renowned workshop housed in the American Sign Museum in Cincinnati, Ohio. His journey into neon craftsmanship began in 1987 as an apprentice, working alongside his older brother, Steve. Over the next few years, he honed his skills crafting neon signs for local sign companies before co-founding Neonworks of Cincinnati in 1991. The company quickly established itself as the premier neon supplier in the Greater Cincinnati area and beyond. Through his dedication to the craft, Tom built a strong working relationship with industry expert Tod Swormstedt, who would later establish the American Sign Museum. Today, Tom continues to preserve and innovate within the neon industry, ensuring that this vibrant art form remains alive and thriving.
