Kelsey Fernkopf remains humble in the limelight; he’d prefer to talk about community, or how letting go is key to staying in the flow.

“It isn’t so much that you’re not letting the outside world in,” he muses. “It’s learning to relax. Letting the ideas come and go where they want, instead of trying to control the direction. That’s when you get confused.”

Sage advice for anyone, but essential zen for a master neon tube bender. Fernkopf’s love of neon—and his eagerness to share it—has made him a cornerstone of the Pacific Northwest’s growing neon scene, which is pushing the limits of what glass and light can do.

Born and raised in Kansas, Fernkopf earned a degree in sculpture but made a living bending neon in sign shops. From the very start, he had a way with neon, an ability to bend fragile glass tubes over open flame with ease. He moved to Seattle in 1987 to work for the National Sign Corporation in South Park and intermittently exhibited sculptures at venues like the now-defunct Howard House. But the tubes he bent for work were never fine art to him. “I never considered a neon cactus art…” he whispers under his breath.

The future of neon is precarious: as retailers turn to cheaper plastic LED for signage, the industry is at risk (only three neon sign shops remain in Seattle), and along with it, the production of factory-made glass tubes—a scenario that would render neon bending all but impossible without glass-blowing skills. Seattle’s vibrant glass scene, shaped by Dale Chihuly and Pilchuck Glass School, is no doubt partly responsible for fueling the city’s unfolding neon renaissance.

In 2018, Fernkopf co-founded the Western Neon School of Art with Dylan Neuwirth, with the intention of passing on skills to a new generation. The school didn’t survive the ups and downs of the pandemic, but it did shift Fernkopf’s attitude toward neon. “Since we were calling it an art school, I had to make art,” he says. So, he did.

It was during those doldrum pandemic nights that Fernkopf began experimenting with ways to art up neon. He fused together pieces so large they were utterly impractical, surely destined to break. But he tried it anyway, in an alley behind a sign shop in Ballard. When he plugged them in—giant minimalist circles, squares, or single poles of light—the effect was breathtaking. He called them Big Neon.

In the five years since, Fernkopf has continued to expand on Big Neon and imagine new environments to hold their light. He has worked extensively with photographer Steven Gilbert to produce an ongoing series of photographs that capture the surreal essence of landscapes transformed with neon. Gilbert and Fernkopf regularly trek to remote areas of parks and forests, or deserted underpasses and city alleys to stage photos with the fragile, ethereal light.

As Fernkopf’s work reaches new venues and curated settings, it continues to evolve. Iterations of Big Neon have appeared at Pilchuck’s Light the Forest and in one-night installations at Sea-Tac Airport. This past summer, the Corning Museum of Glass featured his work at the Seattle Art Fair; in the fall, his blue doors lit a cavernous hall of the Georgetown Steam Plant during METHOD Gallery’s takeover, In Bloom. In September, Foster/White Gallery brought Big Neon indoors with a solo exhibition, Outside: In, where neon constellations served as a backdrop for a live classical music performance.

Two of Fernkopf’s blue neon door pieces are currently on view at Tacoma Art Museum through June 2026 in Haunted, a group exhibition exploring the spectral. Installed in the museum’s stark darkness, the works offer yet another subtle shift in how his luminescent portals are experienced. Fernkopf is now preparing new pieces for a solo show at the Whatcom Museum this July. For the neon-curious, keep an eye out for workshops at Noble Neon, where he works.

“It’s really important to keep neon alive,” says Fernkopf. “If it’s not out there in front of people, people are going to forget about it.”