Studio Tour Offers Brush With Art

Ross Waldberg fastens on his goggles, fires his blowtorch and begins the delicate process of shaping art from neon’s electric glow.

A sign maker by trade, Waldberg, 37, also crafts and sells works of art--wall sculptures of neon, etched glass and textured metal sheetings that add Hollywood glimmer to Danny DeVito’s personal theater and embellish the Studio City home of Patrick Leonard, Madonna’s first producer.

“I just love playing with different materials and the reflections of the glass,” says Waldberg, a Thousand Oaks artist who is among 28 being featured Sunday in the city’s second annual Open Studio Tour.

The tour, sponsored by the Thousand Oaks Arts Commission, offers a behind-the-scenes look at the working methods of professional artists living in the Conejo Valley, Camarillo and Agoura Hills.

Camarillo artist Shirley Judy, for instance, will show how she uses driftwood and seaweed collected from Ventura County beaches to decorate the pottery she fires in a kiln.

Flames dancing across the pottery during firing--and the reaction of the seaweed, driftwood, salt and a copper compound--create unusual patterns and blushes of color not unlike the sands of the county’s beaches and the brown scrubby plants dotting the hillsides.

At another stop on the tour, Waldberg, owner and operator of Art After Dark in Thousand Oaks, will demonstrate the art of shaping neon tubes.

Although neon has long held a sort of high-tech mystique, heating and bending the slender, delicate glass tubing into letters, shapes and objects is largely a hand operation. “There are no machines, no templates, no jigs--nothing,” Waldberg says. “When I’m real busy I can work 16- to 18-hour days.”

He starts by drawing a mirror image of whatever he is creating on paper, then transferring the design onto “nonasbestos,” a heat resistant fiberglass cloth resembling heavy canvas.

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After the pattern is drawn and transferred, Waldberg selects a length of glass tubing to bend according to his plan.

After heating a section of the glass tubing with a torch, Waldberg bends it according to his plan and sets it on the nonasbestos cloth to cool. The cloth soaks up the heat without cracking the glass.

Waldberg repeats this process of heating, shaping and cooling the glass until the piece is complete, fusing together shorter lengths of glass to change colors within a piece.

After shaping is complete, Waldberg fills the tube with an inert gas, such as neon or argon, and seals the ends. Metal electrodes are inserted, and the tubes are hooked up to a high-voltage power supply, which provides the energy to illuminate them.

Crafting neon takes patience, steady hands, a working knowledge of electricity and plenty of experience. One also acquires a tolerance for breaking things, Waldberg said.

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“When I first broke a piece of neon it was like, ‘Oh my god,’ but it’s no big deal after awhile,” he says, referring to the 13 years he has been perfecting his skill.

Waldberg’s artwork has brought him commercial and critical acclaim. A piece titled “Glass Menagerie” took first place in the three-dimensional sculpture category at the Thousand Oaks Juried Art and Photography Show last year. He has also done extensive work with etched glass and creates intricate hand-painted mirrors.

“I’m basically a one-man shop, in the sense that I do everything,” Waldberg says. “I just enjoy creating things in general.”

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FYI

The Open Studio Tour runs from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Sunday. Money raised by the event will fund art education programs and improvements at the Thousand Oaks Community Gallery. Tickets are $10. For reservations and information call: 495-5960.