Neon art wasn’t Perry Pfister’s first career. The New Orleans native previously was in the landscape architecture industry, and had visions of helping rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina. But politics there changed his mind. Then, in 2012 he began a career in neon art, which has its own set of challenges.

“Unfortunately it’s sort of a field that is destined to die,” said Pfister, 34. “The mainly old men that work in the field don’t really want to share information.”

That attitude may have arisen in the 1990s, when the lights nearly went out on neon, literally. LEDs arrived in the 1970s, providing businesses a cheaper, easy-to-produce alternative for light-up signs. By the ’90s, business was tough for neon artists, Pfister said.

“They’re always cagey about people taking their business,” he said. “All these neon workers lost a lot of work in the ’90s, and I think anybody who survived that is really, really cagey about work.”

Adrian Ruiz, a journeyman sign maker for Ramsay Signs, started working with neon in 1978. He has seen the ups and downs of the industry firsthand. The firm isn’t afraid of losing jobs to competitors, he said; work is simply scarce.

“The problem is that we just don’t have enough to keep people working,” he said. “When we had the need, I was always willing to train people. I wish there was more right now.”

Neon signs gained popularity in the early 20th century. They arrived in the U.S. in 1923, when two signs were installed at a Los Angeles auto dealership. Businesspeople took notice that the signs could be seen both during the day and at night.

In Portland, the iconic “White Stag” sign (it now reads “Portland Oregon”) has stood for more than 75 years.

“Everyone has a neon sign they remember,” Pfister said. “It becomes a place marker in the community.”

Pfister’s career path took a somewhat circuitous route. He had worked for two landscape architects before the Great Recession.

“When the recession hit, none of the entry-level (landscape architects) had work,” he said. “I kind of had to start over and went back to working in kitchens, which is what I did in college.”

During this time, Pfister picked up screen printing, which eventually allowed him to leave the service sector. From there, he became fascinated with the letters and typography present in neon signs.

“My interest is more from a nerd standpoint,” he said. “Growing up in New Orleans, there were a lot of neon signs.”

Pfister then found a San Francisco Bay Area sign maker, Shawna Peterson, who helped show him the ropes.

“She told me I was a natural and should stick with it,” he said. “Nobody had ever told me that before, so I listened.”

Soon Pfister’s work with neon eclipsed his work with screen printing. By 2014, his small studio, The Tiny Spoon, was devoted to neon exclusively. He is a one-person operation able to take on both interior and exterior signs.

“It’s pretty difficult to find people who have the level of patience and devotion to being really bad at something for a little while and the level of detail it takes to make it look right,” he said. “It is sort of a quality that is missing from my generation and generations after me.”

Ruiz started his career making neon beer signs in California. At one point, he worked with 12 people on neon signs; now he’s the only one.

“Neon has gone down,” he said. “We are one of the few neon shops still around.”

While cheaper electronic signs have gained market share, neon has seen something of a resurgence due to a desire for nostalgia.

“We do a lot of Regal (Cinemas); that is one of our big accounts,” Ruiz said. “Most of the people who use neon are the people who want to keep their signs the same as they used be.

“Right now it is probably about 10 percent of our work. I do it by myself.”

Neon has its place in the right building and in the right area, according to Scott Waggoner, an Ankrom Moisan project designer. Two of the firm’s recent projects used neon, he said.

“For certain projects, there is a strong reason to bring it back,” he said. “It’s fun. It’s cool. People like the idea of doing something retro.”

Neon has a strong historical tie to some Portland neighborhoods, Waggoner said. Many of the apartment buildings and businesses along Interstate Avenue, for instance, continue to use neon signage.

“The Corso (multifamily) project on Interstate Avenue was all about the history,” he said. “The owners said, ‘Let’s definitely make a nod to that.’ As a new building, we can keep that look going in a modern structure.

“They wanted to do something truly authentic. Neon fit that and does have a pretty long life.”

However, neon isn’t for everywhere, Waggoner said.

“In an area over by the Moda Center, it wouldn’t work,” he said. “That area doesn’t recall that era.”

Despite the shrinking market, Pfister has found a niche by catering to a variety of businesses and artists who have a devotion to that time.

“They want to draw attention to their business,” he said. “To a business, having a neon sign is a major validation. It imbues a sense of establishment.”

Neon also gives viewers a sense of humanity that is lost in electronic mediums, Pfister said. The fact that the sign has an inert gas with electricity moving through it gives an element of life.

“No machine makes neon,” he said. “Even the beer signs that you see are made by hand. They have an element of human error in them. That human error is where character comes from.”

Pfister’s clients long for the tactile feel a neon sign represents, he said. The rapid pace of change in Portland has also led many people to look for items that last. The markers also represent a sense of permanence that has been lost in the digital age.

“LEDs are pretty lifeless,” he said. “Neon is a lot more interesting.”

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After 18 months of testing, Dutch electronics company Philips on Wednesday won the U.S. Department of Energy‘s Bright Lighting Tomorrow Prize of $10 million for developing a more efficient 60-watt light bulb. Its LED bulb matches the brightness of a 60-watt incandescent bulb, but uses a mere versus the 60-watts of the more traditional light source, according to The New York Times. Whereas an incandescent bulb lasts 1,000 to 5,000 hours on average, the LED bulb stays humming for 25,000 hours.

The end result? Huge energy savings – if you can afford the darned thing. According to the , if all incandescents in the country were replaced with the LED bulb, the country would save $3.9 billion each year in energy costs. But with a price tag hovering above $40 when it’s expected to come out early next year, property developers and managers may side with naysayers of the more efficient bulbs over the cost to light up their buildings.

In addition to the $10 million, Philips will also get marketing help from 31 utilities and energy-efficiency programs that will market the product to more than 100 million customers.

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Imagine forking over $20 to $50 for a light bulb, turning it on, going off to grad school to get a masters, and coming back to see that it’s still on. Well, that’s what an LED light bulb can do. They can stay on for over two years.

Lightbulb manufacturers were mandated in 2007 to produce more efficient lightbulbs, a move some saw as a boon to investment in LED technology. Others saw the mandate, spelled out in the , as onerous and something that removes choice from the consumer. Regardless, economies of scale and improvements in construction are making long-lasting bulbs cheaper in the long term for the consumer. In light of all of this (heh), a recent bill that aimed to get rid of these lightbulb regulations was voted down Tuesday in the U.S. House of Representatives.

As today by Umair Irfan for The New York Times, the so-called , proposed by Rep. Joe Barton, R-Texas, failed on Tuesday to repeal the lighting standards of the EISA.

Those who praise efficiency mandates were elated with the news. Jeffrey Harris, senior vice president for programs at the energy efficiency non-profit Alliance to Save Energy, said in the Times article that efficiency mandates “take away from the market the cheapest to buy, but most expensive to use [light source]. That is the incandescent bulb.”

Others disagreed. Brett Sharenow is the chief strategy officer and chief financial officer of Switch Lighting, a venture capital-funded start-up that produces American-made LED light bulbs. Speaking to regulation, he said “We don’t need it, and we don’t want it.”

– Peter Beland

Photo by via Flickr

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A Hillsboro-based company specializing in ultraviolet LED technology today announced it will boost its manufacturing capacity by 50 percent.

Phoseon Technology manufactures ultraviolet LED products that are used to dry and cure products, including wood. This January, the company’s Hillsboro manufacturing facility and administrative offices will expand into a currently unused portion of its building at 7425 N.W. Evergreen Parkway, in Hillsboro, increasing from 13,000 square feet to 20,000 square feet. The expansion includes space for additional manufacturing activity as well as expanded office and laboratory space for engineering and research and development programs.

“The LED technology creates a chemical reaction that instantly dries wood coatings rather than just allowing that liquid to evaporate,” said Stacy Volk, Phoseon spokeswoman. “The existing technology out there for UV curing is mercury based instead of LED based. With our curing method, there are no ozone concerns and more energy savings.”

Wood companies currently using Phoseon’s technology are located mostly in Europe, Volk said. The company was founded in Hillsboro in 2002 and does all of its manufacturing from its Hillsboro headquarters. Currently at 35 employees, the company will create five more positions by the end of the year and hopes to have 50 employees by the end of 2011.

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Contract savings from the city of Tigard‘s Burnham Street improvement project will allow the city to use Light Emitting Diodes to light its new green street project.

According to Kim McMillan, engineering manager for the city of Tigard, low construction bids received for the Burnham Street improvement project will allow the city to spend an extra $150 per light on LED street lights for the project. The city is partnering with Portland General Electric, which will study how well the LEDs perform as street lights.

“Portland General Electric is interested in looking at how these light perform,” McMillan said. “I have a Main Street green street project on the way, and we’re hoping to carry this feature on to that project.”

McMillan estimates that using LEDs on the project will save 35 percent more energy than standard street lights. Other aspects of the Burnham Street improvement project, which is the city’s first green street project, include stormwater treatment planters and new sidewalks. It is currently under construction by Kodiak Pacific Construction.

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When TriMet planned its Milwaukie Park & Ride facility, electrical engineers knew long-lasting and durable lighting fixtures would be needed to keep the area lit well.

For its other Park & Ride facilities, TriMet had used high-pressure sodium lamps. They were bright, but also highly inefficient and burned out after only about 16,000 hours.

So, electrical engineers Flaviano Reyes and Rick Harrison of Reyes Engineering asked the transit agency to consider employing old lighting technology that is seeing new performance improvements.

Light-emitting diodes, better known as LEDs, have been around since the 1960s. But their popularity has increased recently due to advances in the semiconductor industry.

A 120-watt LED, for example, performs 57.6 percent more efficiently than a 350-watt high-pressure sodium lamp.

“When you look at outdoor lighting, LEDs start to outperform conventional lighting in terms of efficiency,” Reyes said. “It’s the same amount of light as a high-pressure sodium lamp, but it’s distributed better. You get the light where you want it.”

Being able to choose exactly where the light fell was important for TriMet, spokeswoman Mary Fetsch said. Certain areas monitored by security cameras at the Park & Ride needed to be lit well.

“LED lights tend to be directional, which is a disadvantage for most general lighting applications,” Fetsch said. “But it’s used to our advantage for parking-lot floodlighting. They provide more control over what is illuminated, which reduces light pollution.”

Fetsch said TriMet will save money on energy use and maintenance by using LEDs, which last for about 50,000 hours. They are also more durable than high-pressure sodium lamps, which have glass tubes that can break more easily.

“Up front, LEDs cost more money than other lighting options,” Reyes said. “But from a maintenance standpoint, the costs over time would be less for TriMet.”

Multnomah County’s transportation department has been researching whether existing streetlights could be converted to LEDs. The county has eight LED streetlights set up on the east-side ramp for the Morrison Bridge.

“We’ve been interested in LEDs for a long time, but we felt that in the past they couldn’t adequately replace our current streetlights,” said Jon Henrichsen, lead engineer for Multnomah County’s bridge department. “But we heard they had used LED lights on the replacement bridge for the (I-35W Mississippi River Bridge) in Minnesota, so we decided to test them.”

The LED lights emitted a clean, white light, Henrichsen said, that allowed pedestrians to see colors better than in the yellowish light emitted by the high-pressure sodium streetlamps. The LED streetlamps also use just 90 watts; existing streetlamps use 250 watts.

But the high-pressure sodium lamps cost only $150 apiece, while the LED streetlamps each cost $1,000. Multnomah County applied for federal stimulus money to pay for projects to replace certain streetlamps with LEDs, but was denied. As a result, the county won’t be adding any LED streetlamps anytime soon.

“We can’t do it unless we’re given a grant of some sort,” Henrichsen said. “Even with how long they last, the payback was still six or seven years out. If cost gets closer to $500, the payback would be fairly quick. I expect the cost to come down in a few years. It always does.”

The Energy Trust of Oregon provides incentives to encourage use of LEDs, according to Susan Jowaiszas, business sector marketing manager for the nonprofit organization. TriMet plans to use LEDs for its new streetcar maintenance facility in Northwest Portland. Lighting for that project will cost $19,000, but TriMet will be able to recoup $10,000 by using Energy Trust’s custom incentive.

“LEDs are becoming more popular for these outdoor applications,” Jowaiszas said. “To be eligible for our incentives, (the LEDs) need to be Energy Star qualified, or meet those criteria, and they must meet cost effectiveness standards. LEDs work best in certain situations and we want to make sure they perform.”

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