‘Dr. Neon’ Makes Light of His Work
His business phone is unlisted and if the job isn’t “fun,” he won’t take it.
But then, Laguna Beach craftsman Alexander B. Evans, 34, considers himself an artist first and then a businessman.
And by the way, don’t call him Evans; his professional name is “Dr. Neon.”
Working out of a 1,600-square-foot studio located next to several auto repair, welding and upholstery shops on Laguna Canyon Road, the “doctor” bends thin glass tubes into shooting stars, neon signs and luminous, emerald-colored cactuses.
Recapturing an art that flourished in the 1950s, he often works from 7 a.m. until midnight, filling long, white tubules with inert argon or neon gas, then barraging them with up to 15,000 volts of electricity to make them glow.
But this isn’t really work, Evans said with a grin. “What else is there to do?” he said. “I just play.”
Accompanied by a three-legged Lhasa apso og named Tuffy and two assistants--glass bender Debbie Shan, 37, and apprentice Clayton Ramsdell Leeds, 19--Evans pads about his workshop--or “laboratory,” as he prefers to call it--wearing a white lab coat over a T-shirt and batik shorts. Looped around his neck like a stethoscope is a piece of long brown tubing used for blowing glass. Parked in front of the workshop is his delivery van--a turquoise ambulance with “Dr. Neon” on the license plate.
A self-taught neon artist, Evans designs script or block-lettered signs that he sells to hotels and restaurants for $1,000 to $15,000. But he also makes representational art--cactuses or tropical fish, for instance, that he sells to collectors.
Laguna Beach Police Chief Neil Purcell keeps one of Evans’ 4-foot cactuses in his living room. “I’ve always been somewhat intrigued about neon,” Purcell said. “It’s tastefully done and inexpensive to operate.” Also, Purcell said, he enjoys adjusting the sculpture’s transformer to brighten or dim its glow.
Evans keeps some of his neon sculptures for his own enjoyment. A neon line drawing of ruby-lipped Marilyn Monroe hangs in his office, and the ceiling is trimmed with a long red neon squiggle.
Evans said he has always considered himself an artist. In Chicago in the mid-1970s, he won first prize in a citywide high school contest for building a miniature Norman castle from 100,000 sugar cubes.
After graduating from Southern Illinois University at Carbondale with a bachelor’s degree in fine arts, Evans taught high school wood-shop classes for a year, then spent six years traveling around the country selling hand-crafted jewelry at medieval fairs. He opened a jewelry business in Laguna Beach in 1982.
Two years later, Evans said, he got hooked on neon. He had decided to decorate his jewelry booth at the city’s annual Sawdust Festival with eye-catching signs, and he spent a day at a neon sign shop in Santa Ana, studying the technique. Intrigued by the vibrant colors of the gas, he built his own equipment and began making neon signs.
Along with perfecting his neon technique, Evans has learned the history of the art.
In 1910, French inventor George Claude discovered the peculiar quality of neon when he passed an electrical charge through the gas and watched it turn red. That color can be changed to a deep purple by changing the composition of the tube or the pressure of the gas, Evans noted. Another rare gas, argon, can be combined with mercury, then electrically charged to produce some of Evans’ favorite colors--deep blues, turquoises or pinks.
Ironically, Evans said he makes his neon signs in a town with an “anti-neon” sign ordinance. Under the 1983 regulation, businesses are prohibited from displaying “internally lit” signs--including the neon variety--on their exterior walls. A neon sign may be displayed inside a business, but only if it is set 3 feet back from the windows.
Evans called the regulation “an arbitrary ruling to harass you.”
But Laguna Beach City Manager Kenneth Frank said the ordinance was designed to protect Laguna’s small-town ambiance from too many brightly lit signs. “We don’t want to get to the point of Las Vegas,” Frank said.
Evans, meanwhile, said he thinks some Las Vegas signs are beautiful. Even so, he said, there is no comparison between a tacky neon sign and his one-of-a-kind designs.
“Now there’s bad neon out there,” he said, referring to signs with lettering that isn’t straight or that buzzes loudly because the tubing was installed improperly.
“You go to a commercial neon house, and if you spelled the word dog ‘DGO,’ they would make the word ‘DGO’ on their neon sign. . . . But I’m an artist, I’m not a neon manufacturer . . . and every piece is a labor of love.”
Herbert J. Vida is on vacation.
