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Neon workers have dwindled. One local shop is keeping the lights on

Tom Wartman holds glass tubing for a neon sign up to a 1,500 degree flame to bend it into shape.
Nick Swartsell
/
WVXU
Tom Wartman holds glass tubing for a neon sign up to a 1,500 degree flame to bend it into shape.

Tom Wartman is standing over a rectangle of blue flame and bending glass in his hands.

"This fire is about 1,500 degrees," he says casually.

He quickly and deftly moves the glass arc from the flame to check it against a paper pattern for a neon clock face. It's right on the money.

"I'll let it sit for about 10 or 12 seconds," he explains. "That's how long it takes for it to get rigid again."

The technique is called glass bending. It's integral to the neon sign-making process — and an increasingly rare skill.

Neon is an indelible part of America's cultural landscape. Despite the public's continued fascination with its mesmerizing light, tradespeople like Wartman who make and service neon signs are dwindling.

But there's still a tight-knit community of people who collect neon, people who fix and make new neon signs, and artists who are expanding its future potential.

Wartman is the director of Neonworks, which is housed in Camp Washington's American Sign Museum. Once an independent business, the neon shop became part of the museum earlier this summer.

A family tradition

Wartman has been bending glass and doing just about everything else related to neon signs for decades. It runs in the family.

"I grew up around a neon shop," he says. "This is what my dad did. So my first job at 12 or 13 was sweeping the floor at his shop."

After he's done bending, Wartman points out equipment he uses to fill the tubes with inert gas. The type of gas and a special florescent powder coating inside some of the tubes will determine what shade they'll glow.

"Once we vacuum all the air out of the tube, we put the gas in the tube," he says. "Either neon gas, which lights up reddish-orange, or argon gas with mercury in it, which lights up blue."

Neonworks employee Bing Reising works at the Camp Washington workshop. Reising started bending glass for neon signs in 2020. He builds and repairs neon signs and also makes artwork in the medium.
Nick Swartsell
Neonworks employee Bing Reising works at the Camp Washington workshop. Reising started bending glass for neon signs in 2020. He builds and repairs neon signs and also makes artwork in the medium.

To Wartman's right, large windows separate the shop from a cavernous room full of giant neon signs. That's the Sign Museum, which saw about 60,000 visitors last year.

The museum also focuses on hand-painted and plastic signs, but Founder Tod Swormstedt says most of the visitors are drawn by the appeal of neon.

"When I started talking about a sign museum, most people went straight to a neon sign museum," he recalls. "Obviously, our museum is way more than that. But that's the key that people relate to."

A big part of that fascination is nostalgia for a time when technological progress first began reaching the masses in America. Electricity. Automobiles. Radio. And neon signs were popping up everywhere right in the middle of it all.

"Neon really hit the U.S. in the late 1920s," Swormstedt says. "By the early to mid-1930s, every small town had at least one neon sign."

Keeping the trade alive

By the late 1960s, the introduction of plastics led to a decrease in the popularity of glass-tubed neon signs. LED lights came later and cut into neon's share of the sign market yet again.

When Wartman's father ran his neon shop in Covington, he had plenty of competition. These days, Wartman estimates he's one of the last people in the region with the specialized skills needed to create the signs.

That's important because collectors are increasingly looking for people who can repair their vintage neon pieces. And businesses are seeking out new neon signs to give their locations that warm, authentic feel.

Tom Wartman in the Neonworks workshop.
Nick Swartsell
/
WVXU
Tom Wartman in the Neonworks workshop.

"We're the only functioning neon shop within about a 100-mile radius of Cincinnati," he says. "That might not be exact, but it feels like that with all the people who come to our shop and are very happy to find us."

While he's not ready to hang it up just yet, Wartman has thought about what will happen when he retires. Luckily, he's passing his knowledge on to the next generation.

What's next for neon?

Bing Reising is 26 and has been glass bending for neon signs for about four years and working at Neonworks for just under a year. He's an artist and photographer who found a love for neon early.

His family would frequent a local Dairy Queen in his native Cleveland with vintage neon signs.

"It was just really cool," he says. "I loved looking at it. I remember being a kid and jus zoning out staring at these signs."

Reising got his first neon sign when he was 11 at an antique shop. Collecting them was just a hobby until the start of the pandemic, when he had time to hunt down a neon sign shop in Cleveland that could repair some of his collection.

The owner of the shop saw his fascination with the signs and asked, would he want to learn how to work with neon? Reising jumped at the chance. He learned quickly and began making a name for himself with his commercial signs and artwork.

"I started bending four years ago, May of 2020," he says. "It's been a whirlwind ever since, honestly."

Then, about a year ago, Wartman posted on Facebook looking for another glass bender to work at Neonworks. Others in the neon industry suggested Reising.

The young sign maker says he's grateful for the chance to learn from someone as skilled as Wartman.

"Tom is so good at glass," Reising says. "He's so quick at it. It's intimidating, sure, but it's also fuel to the fire. Like, I want to get there too."

The Neonworks workshop in Camp Washington
Nick Swartsell
/
WVXU
The Neonworks workshop in Camp Washington

For Reising, neon presents artistic possibilities other mediums can't replicate. His neon art includes replications of some of his photography created with neon tubes.

Wartman, meanwhile, finds the glow of neon comforting and meditative.

"I always akin staring at a neon sign to staring at a campfire," he says. "It's just pleasing, and it can mesmerize you. As you might daydream staring into a campfire, you can do the same with a neon sign."

The sign museum is exploring the possibility of offering classes in neon work, giving others the opportunity to pursue it as a hobby or occupation. In the meantime, both Wartman and Reising are doing their part to keep the neon lights on.

Nick has reported from a nuclear waste facility in the deserts of New Mexico, the White House press pool, a canoe on the Mill Creek, and even his desk one time.