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I think a new generation of artists are using neon as material, but I think it reflects a greater concern about using non-traditional materials, and I think its more an interest in light that has sparked this resurgence in the use of neon.

In 1910, French chemist Georges Claude discovered that neon gas in a closed vacuum produced a brilliant red color when charged with high voltage.

The first neon sign followed, and neon quickly became known as a sign material.

Artists are recognizing the potential of neon and incorporating it into their own work using it in ways unimaginable to many just a few years ago.

Neon's a very exciting material.

You can activate a large amount of space with just a little material.

But it also implies a lot of things.

The reason why I use it, it's sort of the antithesis of the other material which I'm mostly concerned with, which is steel, okay?

And basically what I'm doing, I'm building these steel matrices that look like computer components that implies some sort of functionality within them, okay?

And by adding neon light to that, you get a synergistic relationship between these two materials working with and against one another.

In 1987, the Ohio Department of Transportation donated 1,000 walk, don't walk signs to the Ohio State University.

Transformers neon tubes and casings became available to artists.

Anytime I can get three of something, that's a piece waiting to happen.

And when I had an opportunity to have unlimited access to neon tubes that were taken from these walk-don't-walk signs, I began just taking apart, like there were days I spent just taking apart 10, 15 walk-Don't-Walk signs.

But then I used them in a work in a different way that doesn't speak at all directly to what their function was before.

I've been very interested in light in general, particularly man-made light.

It seems to be kind of covering the... Actually, that disturbs me.

When I fly over the country each year, it's progressively more like this kind of layer of glowing something.

And so I think in my sculpture, I've been exploring this kind of growth of this light and maybe the structure that that growth might take.

Richard Harned was trained as a glass artist and incorporates those ideas into large-scale structures.

His latest works explore interactions of light, motion, and time.

I think the idea is not an amusement, the idea is to help people develop some sense of vision as they look at this, try to puzzle out what it means.

Worthington, Ohio was winked at as Harnett sculpture Wink-O-Matic Deluxe attracted the attention of evening travelers.

I worked with Tom Krieger, who was one of my students, and then he collaborated with me on a number of these kind of installations that are outdoors to develop an idea of a kind of a wonderful bridge, a space that people could drive around.

It was very interesting to maintain that sculpture, because it was up for a month.

And, uh...

It was on a timer, so it would come on at dusk, and we'd hope for a lack of traffic accidents or something.

And so I would drive out there at dusks to make sure the timer worked, and then I'd go out at midnight or so to make it work again.

And generally, I'd find people there who had decided to drive in front of the library, and as you drove around it, it turned from being this kind of a shape.

Which was like a big smile or something, or a kind of a rope suspension bridge, or some kind of line to being just a little shape, like a little X from the end.

So you'd find people driving around it.

You'd find them lying underneath it, looking at it.

It was an interesting social experience.

I really like neon and I choose to work with it as a material because it has both psychological and physical properties that I don't think any other material has and they can be very strong or very subtle.

I would like the viewer to have more of a feeling rather than a recognition.

I think the things that I make are abstract enough that they're not really a specific thing but they can remind somebody of something and that feeling is important and also the I use materials, I would like that.

To convey sort of a mysterious kind of intimate relationship between the viewer and my piece.

I think that this new generation of artists won't be so mystified by the material, which is often laid criticism against a lot of neon art, but they'll begin to be able to