Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SATURDAY, January 11, 1992 TAG: 9201110201
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: E-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Long
ROANOKE'S NEON LIGHTS LEAVE A WARM FEELING INSIDE
JESUS SAVES\ YELLOW CAB CO.\EAT
And, of course, H&C COFFEE
These are some of the best-known signs in Roanoke. They are neon signs that glow and, in some cases, flash at us from hillside, roadside and building-side.
They are reminders of times past when everything, not just their letters, seemed bathed in a warm, nostalgic light.
Roanoke's skyline recently was enriched by the relighting of the H&C Coffee sign near the Roanoke City Market. The gaily colored pot that pours coffee into a bright cup is an old friend to area residents and a visual treat for newcomers.
It put the 34 readers who called our comment line into a mood to appreciate other neon artworks.
"My favorite signs are the two Jesus Saves signs in the valley," said Mary Young of Roanoke. "One of them is located on Grace Brethren Church and the other one is located at the City Rescue Mission."
"What I like is the old Yellow Cab sign," said Brian Bowman of Roanoke. "I think it's interesting the way the phone numbers light up individually and then all together."
"We don't want to sound prejudiced, but we feel the sign in front of our motel, the Blue Jay Motel near Dixie Caverns, is unusual and pretty," said Gary and Cathy Bonham. "It's been here approximately 30 years."
Neon, says Bob Fields, an associate professor of art at Virginia Tech, is intense yet diffused. "It's multifaceted visually.
"It has a very nostalgic feel to it," he says. "I grew up in the West, and it reminds me of that whole Route 66 experience. The warm glow makes for a warm feeling.'
The warmth is not literal, like a temperature, but psychological.
Neon, says Wayne Wise, the owner of Distinctive Car Care in Roanoke and a collector of the stuff, can soothe your stress. "When I want to get away from things, I turn all my neon signs on. It's a neat feeling at night."
Neon, says Gary Metz of Roanoke, who is a dealer in vintage and antique advertising items, can mean money. A neon Clover Creamery sign in good condition goes for $350 to $450 or more. "Anything is possible, given the setting and time and place and desire," he says.
He sold a countertop Coca-Cola neon sign from the 1930s for $3,500. He sold a pair from the 1960s for $1,100 apiece about a month ago.
Cities bigger than Roanoke boast chain stores that carry neon products old and new. And Los Angeles is home to the Museum of Neon Art, a non-profit exhibit space and vintage collection founded 10 years ago by artist Lila Lakich.
"I was always fascinated with it as a child, traveling across the country at night," Lakich says. "I had always looked at and studied neon signs, so when I went to art school in the '60s and was hating traditional painting and sculpture, I decided that what I loved more than anything else was neon. I've been a neon artist for more than 25 years."
The first neon sign was made by the Georges Claude sign company and placed on a barber shop in Paris, France, in 1923, Lakich says. That same year, Earl Anthony, a Los Angeles automobile dealer, went to Paris and ordered two signs for his Packard business back home.
"They went up in 1923, and they stopped traffic," she adds.
Claude sold franchises worldwide for a then-breathtaking $100,000 apiece. In 1929, Lakich says, the year of the Great Depression, his business earned $9 million.
World War II, with its blackouts in the United States, cut into neon's allure, and the development of plastic signs in the '50s made neon look tacky and cheap.
Neon tube-benders, a territorial bunch who were not always eager to share their secrets, went into decline. Figures vary, but it's safe to say they dwindled from tens of thousands to only a few hundred.
But the demand for neon didn't disappear even then, says Todd Swarmstedt, who handles special projects for ST Publications in Cincinnati, which puts out Signs of the Times magazine.
One common source: channel lighting in shops and malls - three-D letters with the lights enclosed behind them.
"What became out of favor was exposed neon," he says.
Now, neon is a pop art form as well as an advertising medium. It's also used for architectural highlights on big city buildings. Lakich is working on a neon sculpture 85 feet long for a new Los Angeles building. Cincinnati's Clarion and Hyatt hotels boast neon on their outsides, too.
Neon art is considered art. And the neon sign "is a form of high craft," Swarmstedt says. "It takes years and years of practice. . . . There's almost more craft in the sign application than there is in art, in a broad sense."
But artists, with their thirst for ever-better ways of working with neon, have helped kick the industry into the high-tech age, he says.
Now, tube-bending has experienced a mini-revival. "Twelve to 18 schools have arisen out of a need for glassblowers," Swarmstedt says.
Although neon continues to evolve, commercial neon remains in many ways what it was when it was introduced - glass tubes full of neon and argon gas, with drops of mercury to brighten the colors and phosphorous inside the tubes to change them.
Artists may use helium, krypton and xenon to produce up to 150 distinctive colors and hues, Lakich says.
Her neon mecca is Reno, Nev. - "a very small town that calls itself The Biggest Little City in the World. It's about six blocks by six blocks, all neon lit, and they keep it in immaculate working condition. I was impressed that it was such a darling place."
Roanoke isn't Reno in a lot of ways. But we, too, have neon to be proud of. And, with the resurrection of the H&C sign, our appreciation of it is higher than ever.
As Swarmstedt says, "People don't like signs in the landscape, screwing up the visual environment. But they make an exception for neon. It reminds them of home, their youth, their childhood."
Memo: CORRECTION