{"id":1950318,"date":"2026-05-21T16:22:39","date_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:22:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1950318"},"modified":"2026-05-21T16:22:39","modified_gmt":"2026-05-21T13:22:39","slug":"a-new-residency-aims-to-give-native-artists-the-tools-to-make-art-in-neon","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/?p=1950318","title":{"rendered":"A New Residency Aims to Give Native Artists the Tools to Make Art in Neon"},"content":{"rendered":"

[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_3578.jpg?w=1024″]<\/p>\n

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\n\tMaking art in a new medium can pose a challenge for any artist, especially one as technically complex as neon. Now a new residency aims to alleviate those growing pains.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe Walker Youngbird Foundation, a Native-led nonprofit focused on supporting Indigenous artists, has launched a new residency program in collaboration with Lite Brite Neon Studio in Kingston, New York. For the program, a Native artist who has never created work in neon will work with Lite Brite to fabricate a new piece in the medium.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cWe specifically asked for applicants who had never worked in neon before because we wanted to open the door for artists who had never worked in the medium, but had a desire to and never have the access to it,\u201d Reid Walker (MHA Nation), the foundation of the Walker Youngbird Foundation, told ARTnews<\/em> in an interview.<\/p>\n

\n\tThe inaugural Native Neon resident is Sarah Rowe (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska), who primarily works in painting and installation. \u201cShe explores identity, ecology, and the reinterpretation of Native visual histories,\u201d Walker said of her practice. He pointed to a mural titled Starseeds<\/em> that she created in Nebraska that spans 15 grain silos. \u201cHer practice already carried a strong sense of scale and visibility, and neon can extend that language into light and public space a very different way,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

\n\tRowe was selected from a pool of over 100 applications. Instead of giving a specific proposal about what a work by them in neon might look liked, the foundation asked them to write \u201cabout how they would envision translating their current practice into a format that\u2019s different from what they\u2019ve done before,\u201d Walker said. \u201cWe didn\u2019t want them to have an idea of the finished product because they don\u2019t understand the medium yet. There are so many variables that go into this\u2014it\u2019s really a collaborative process.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe residency is valued at around $50,000 per cycle, with the majority of the funds going toward the fabrication of the neon work but also covers flights and lodging, as well as a $10,000 artist stipend. Additionally, each artist will own the work produced, as well as the intellectual property rights to it; the residency also covers the cost to ship the work back to their homebase. Each resident will spend between 7 to 10 days on site at Lite Brite Neon Studios to fabricate their work, with a number of a planning meetings scheduled ahead of their arrival to familiarize them with the medium. <\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThe residency was about allowing them to step away from their day-to-day work and experience, so they can come into this studio and be able to have time away to create,\u201d Walker said of the decision to dedicate about one-fifth of the funds toward a stipend. \u201cWe wanted to make sure they had the flexibility that they needed.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Sarah Rowe is the inaugural recipient of the Native Neon residency. <\/span>Photo Bill Sitzmann<\/cite><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n

\n\tThe idea for a residency focused on creating work in neon came shortly after Walker acquired Watt\u2019s 2024 neon work A Shared Horizon (Keepers of the Eastern Door, Reprise)<\/em>, which she fabricated in collaboration with Lite Brite. Shortly afterward, he also acquired Jeffrey Gibson\u2019s neon sculpture My heart beats for the one I love<\/em> (2024), which he donated to the Phillips Collection in 2025. Watt would introduce him to matteline devries-dilling, Lite Brite\u2019s creative director, and over dinner they began talking about \u201cthe barrier to entry for neon for artists.\u201d A trip to Lite Brite\u2019s studio in the Hudson Valley soon followed, which got Walker thinking about what would eventually become Native Neon.<\/p>\n

\n\t\u201cThere is a lot of infrastructure that\u2019s involved in neon, so it\u2019s very difficult for any artist, and specifically Native artists, to get into this practice and learn more about it,\u201d Walker said. \u201cWe wanted to break down that barrier to entry and allow more Native artists access into a neon practice.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tHe continued, \u201cNeon works are really just stories carried in charged gas and shaped glass. For us, there\u2019s something powerful about Native artists bending that light into their own visual language. We\u2019re interested in what it means for Indigenous artists to have authorship in mediums and visual vocabularies where we haven\u2019t historically occupied much space.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tWatt will serve in the role of primary advisor to Native Neon. \u201cShe has the understanding of what it means to create these finished products, how to translate her practice into neon,\u201d Walker said. \u201cShe anchors the program in serious discourse around material, not just the novelty of neon.\u201d<\/p>\n

\n\tThe residency also fits within the Walker Youngbird Foundation\u2019s larger goals of supporting Native art, which also includes grants for emerging artists and tribal-led, community-based projects, as well as supporting acquisitions of Native art by museums. Walker, whose father Hans Walker Jr. grew up around Native art and began building a collection of it in earnest in 2020. His involvement with two Washington, D.C. museums\u2014the Phillips Collection as a trustee the National Gallery of Art as a member of the Collectors Committee\u2014led him to launch the foundation in 2024, as he came to realize just how much of a \u201creal barrier to entry [exists] for Native art\u201d within mainstream museums. \u00a0<\/p>\n

\n\tWith Native Neon and the foundation\u2019s other initiatives, Walker hopes to help break down some of those barriers that exist, specifically for Native artists. \u201cWe\u2019re in a moment where Indigenous artists are finally gaining broader institutional visibility,\u201d he said. \u201cBut we have a long way to go. The question becomes visibility into what: what mediums, what spaces. Neon is one of those areas that hasn\u2019t been that accessible yet<\/em>.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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[analyse_image type=”featured” src=”https:\/\/www.artnews.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/IMG_3578.jpg?w=1024″] Making art in a new medium can pose a challenge for any artist, especially one as technically complex as neon. Now a new residency aims to alleviate those growing pains. The Walker Youngbird Foundation, a Native-led nonprofit focused on supporting Indigenous artists, has launched a new residency program in collaboration with Lite […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[61,226],"class_list":["post-1950318","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-politics","tag-artnews-com","tag-crawlmanager"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950318","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1950318"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1950318\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1950318"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1950318"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/analyse.optim.biz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1950318"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}