Neon isn’t easy.
It’s a practice of those noble pursuits of patience, perseverance and humility Arnold here challenged me psychologically beyond anything I’ve done, creatively.
My cousin had requested I build him the “mud flap girl”. I didn’t have it in me, too much negative connotation. I decided a muscle man would have to do and went about creating a pattern of the iconic Arnold Schwarzenegger. After sketching him out on a big piece of paper, I was pretty optimistic. I think this might work! What proceeded was a long journey of bending, breaking, splicing, breaking and rebending again and again. Finally Arnold was ready to be pumped with Neon gas. He lit up and he looked great!
I brought the completed tubes back to the shop to start creating the back board cut out. All was rolling along nicely when CRUNCH, Arnold was stepped on. Broke.
It took a full week to fix him. The challenges continued. Long story short, this Arnold piece required a level of stick-to-it-ness that went beyond what I knew I had.
It’s for these reasons, he’s also the most lovely.
