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Jon Roberson uses neon tubing to bring clients’ concepts to glowing life.
Jon Roberson demonstrates how to make letters from glass at his neon glass studio, located in his east Tulsa home’s garage.
Jon Roberson‘s voice lights up when he talks about neon signs. His fascination began when he was a kid putting together Christmas displays.
So what’s a guy to do? Why, buy his own neon equipment, of course, which is just what Roberson did in 1982.
Certainly, for Roberson, it was a learning process. Although he had ideas for designs of neon signs, “I didn’t know how to bend the glass,” he says.
So, he did what most anyone else would do in his situation: He hired a guy he saw working on neon signs to bend glass for him and then began learning the process on his own.
Now, Roberson, armed with creative ideas and actual neon-sign-making skills, has found success in a small and specialized niche. Over the last 30 years, he has created unique works for a variety of clients — from individuals to local businesses to bars and even a custom sign for his own wedding. He also does repairs.
Here, Roberson describes the business of neon, favorite projects and how he takes signs from ideas to reality:
"I’m good at putting glass to patterns, but I don’t necessarily draw freestyle. But I can certainly see it in my mind. Sometimes I need a little help. There’s an art side to it, and not everyone is familiar with that part.
"Pink Cadillacs, jukeboxes, a Lamborghini — people come to me and say, 'Boy, I’d really like to have (this or that) in neon.'
"I’ve done hundreds and hundreds of names. Years of 'I want my name,' 'I want my son’s name.' People love to put their favorite sayings and things like that. People want nicknames or cute names or whatever. There’s just been countless things that people have wanted in neon over the years that are custom-made, one-of-a-kind.
"Think about it — it’s not often that you see your own name in your favorite color written in light-up glass tubes. I mean, that doesn’t come in a Happy Meal.
"You know, you take a piece of glass and bend it. It’s fun. You heat it up and mold it into the shape you drew out.
"I made a sign for a (private) bar called Annie’s Bar once. It turned out great. It had curvy lines as an outline. For my wedding sign, I drew up some roses and things like that. It was a bouquet of roses inside a heart. That’s one of those where I wasn’t really able to draw out exactly what I wanted to do, but I could make the glass go where it needed to. I really liked that sign.
"I’ll take a broken sign and take it home and fix it. There will be a storm or something, and they’ll hand me a pile of broken glass and I need to take it (and) make it alive again.
"I’d like to do more. I used to have a showroom, but there isn’t quite as much demand for my product right now.
"There’s only about five or six of us doing this in town.
"It’s cool stuff. I’m still fascinated with it 30 years later.
"It’s pure work, but when you can make something for someone and they say, 'That’s just cool-looking,' that makes it all worthwhile."
