A Guiding Light: Neon Artist Lili Lakich
With the golden years of neon past their heyday in the 80’s, it looked like many of those lit-up gas-filled tubes were on the verge of going dim. Instead it turned out that neon was poised to make a comeback, even going so far as being color inspiration for fashion later in the decade. Neon’s reinvention owes much credit to the artist Lili Lakich. In 1980, she established her studio in downtown Los Angeles and a year later started the Museum of Neon Art (MONA) with fellow neon artist Richard Jenkins. Both MONA and Lili’s studio shared the same space. This made it the hotspot in Los Angeles for all things neon. Her studio space attracted a lot of attention from Hollywood producers and location managers. “I couldn’t keep [location managers] away. They were always coming by my studio.” Pretty soon, neon started popping up in various commercials, music videos and movies.
As a young child, Lili was captivated by neon signs she saw during cross-country trips with her family. There was something ethereal about colored lights against the dark backdrop of a night sky. She started to view neon more than just flashy advertising; it was a way to paint using light. Lili went on to pursue art at the prestigious Pratt Institute in New York. Since Lili believed that art could be open to other mediums beyond traditional drawing, painting, and photography, she soon lost interest in the classical art education taught at Pratt. Lili eventually returned to her initial love of signs. She tried to get an apprentice position at a neon sign shop, but was flat out refused. One kind employee gave her some scrap neon tubes, a wiring diagram and told her where to buy a transformer. Lili’s tenacious spirit motivated her to learn about neon through trial and error. “If you can visualize it, you can get it done. You have to be dogged about it.”
The bold graphic look of tattoos and military insignia Lili had seen while her father was in the army is where she drew inspiration for her earlier work. These influences became her muse for one of her favorite pieces of this time, “Blessed Oblivion”. It symbolizes Lili’s tombstone and a memorial for her four year relationship with Gayle Rendleman. Even though the work had a personal meaning to Lili, "Blessed Oblivion" also resonated with others. “Of all the works exhibited at the Museum of Neon Art over many years, this is the one people wanted to photograph…young latino kids. bikers. baby boomers. All kinds of people,” Lili recalls in her book Lakich: For Light. For Love. For Life. It even caught the attention of a museum in Japan, but Lili preferred that the piece stay in the U.S. Concerned about iconic american signs, such as LA’s Brown Derby, that are being bought by galleries overseas she comments, "Our cultural heritage is being sold off.“
Lili doesn’t need to wear her heart on her sleeve; her art does that for her. Through her work, she lets us into her world with subjects ranging from friends and family dear to her to causes she is passionate about. Many of her works reference art and artists she admires. A French critic took note of this at her show in Paris with the praise "comme Matisse, comme Leger” (like Matisse, like Leger). Though neon is still prominent in her pieces, Lili frequently adds found objects to enhance the stories she tells with her work. “At this point, I’d rather go to a swap meet than a museum…I learn more from them, I see more at them.”
31 years later, Lili is still working out of her downtown LA studio. She keeps the tradition of neon alive by sharing her knowledge with others, having been teaching neon classes since the days when MONA was still housed in her studio space. Lili says she learns as much from her students as they do from her. She has even partnered up with one of her former students, Kristie Kaler, to create the neon symbol for Forever Gay Rainbow, the company she co-owns with Kaler.
Between her art and commissioned commercial signs, Lili’s prolific work has made an indelible mark on neon’s history. Even though the popularity of neon is waning and materials are harder to come by, Lili will not give up the medium she’s been enamored with since childhood. No matter what happens, she will always find a way to make her stories glow.
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