The fading art of neon in Alaska

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The light of the neon sign at the 1 Hour Fireweed Cleaning glows against the evening sky along Fireweed Lane in Anchorage, Alaska on Saturday, Sept. 23, 2017. (Bob Hallinen / Alaska Dispatch News)

As autumn fades in Anchorage, neon light signs downtown glow more vibrantly in the creeping dark.

"FURS," one sign on Fourth Avenue reads vertically, lit in blue and red above displays of wolf pelts and mukluks.

The flashy orange-red neon sign above Club Paris bears the restaurant's name alongside a glowing advertisement for cocktails and food hung off a miniature Eiffel Tower.

"HOME OF THE ALMOST PERFECT BARTENDERS," reads another, welcoming you into the Pioneer Bar.

But these signs, once so common in bright city landscapes, are slipping out of fashion in Anchorage and elsewhere, say some of the few people in Alaska who still know the business of neon.

Newer alternatives — fluorescent and LED lights — are cheaper than neon lights, which suck up more energy.

Kelly Turney owns a Palmer antique and vintage shop called Alaska Picker along with his wife, Becky. They travel the state looking for everything from furniture to vinyl records, but finding and saving classic neon signs is his passion.

"The bigger and the crazier, it intrigues me even more," he said.

There aren't too many neon signs left in Alaska, he said, because the state wasn't very developed when they became trendy in the 1940s and 1950s. Then the 1964 earthquake damaged some that were here, he said.

"My guess, probably original neons to Alaska, there may be a dozen or a dozen and a half still hanging in the state," Turney said.

As far as he knows, the one that reads "Kimball's," hanging in front of The Kobuk coffee and gift shop in downtown Anchorage, is the oldest.

"There are multiple dying arts that are going on in that process" of making such signs, Turney said.

The number of shops in Alaska that actually make neon signs can apparently be counted on one hand. Darby Evans owns a sign company in Anchorage that used to do primarily neon work. Now, he mostly makes LED signs because of how much more efficient and popular they've become.

"It knocked 90 percent of my business out," said Evans. "I've had to diversify."

His business was called Neon of Alaska, but he's now working on incorporating a new company with a new name: LED Lighting & Sign LLC.

South of Anchorage, at Kenai Neon Sign Co., owner Doug Field said his shop also doesn't do as much neon work as it once did, especially in the '80s. Even the block letters you see on the front of Fred Meyer or any number of stores and restaurants used to be lit with neon, but many aren't anymore, he said.

Neon signs have become a niche market, and it's a labor-intensive one, Field said. The work involves heating and bending glass tubes, which are then filled with neon gas, and sometimes argon gas and mercury.

"It's just not in fashion anymore," Field said. "Plus, for a long time, neon wasn't really considered a power hog. But with the advent of LEDs and some of the more advanced lighting systems, it really is."

Joy Motsinger, who makes neon signs and art at her company Liquid Light in Girdwood, has noticed much of the same.

"I think there's going to be a very small niche, and I think it's going to be expensive," she said. "I think getting the materials is going to be difficult, and the knowledge, too."

She doesn't know of many people who are in the process of learning the craft. Around Anchorage, she's noticed most older neon signs are just getting replaced.

"It's going to be sad if it goes away," she said.

One huge neon sign in downtown Anchorage is the 4th Avenue Theatre sign, which Field and his father worked on, he said. But with the theater closed, it is no longer lit.

Field made a lot of neon signs that once hung in Anchorage, he said, but doesn't see many of them anymore.

"I think most of it's gone," he said. The same is true for most of the work he's done over the years in Kenai.

Evans, in Anchorage, has also made neon art for friends, like the names of their children or neon palm trees to set up in a corner of a house. But there's no money in neon art, he said. Sometimes neon can also be affected by very low temperatures, he added — not ideal for Alaska.

He still gets interest from people who want to learn how to make neon signs themselves, but it's not an easy thing to teach.

Some of the signs around Anchorage are newer neon, not from the 1950s, and those are "just not the same" in Turney's view. The same goes for new beer signs you might see lit up in liquor stores.

"It's really a disappearing landscape," he said. "Just now are people realizing these things are out there and need to be saved. … Everyone remembers the hum, the color, the buzz it makes when you walk by."