The light behind the glass

I was confused, perplexed, and somewhat exhilarated by the examples given by Fang to explain his idea to the world. He portrayed the thinking behind his design as looking at a Neon Sign through a Stained Glass window. The light through the window was meant to be shielded, but the window and the light could work together to create a coherent and complete design.

I think when I first heard his ideas The use of the 'Neon Sign' in the explanation glared out at me like, well, a neon sign, Garish and brilliant, blinding and obnoxious, unmistakable and unavoidable. The traditional use of a neon sign in writing is to make something obvious, and perhaps that's what he meant but I took it differently. By placing the neon sign behind a stained glass window it was meant to be hidden. "Hide the neon, obscure the meaning!" is how I took it.

The stained glass window however was the contrast. A beautiful piece of wrought iron artwork and multi-hued glass danced through my mind with patterns and designs and stylized images of the Virgin Mary and Jesus on the Cross. The only conjunction I could make between the two, window and sign, was to place this window in a church on the wrong side of a moral corrupt town. So that the flashing triple x and moving dancers illuminated in a tinted pink or blue the swirling sacrifice made for that purpose.

After all Mary Magdelene turned her life around why couldn't the employees of the aforementioned signs. Regardless of the imagery above, the challenge in my mind's eye was to place a light behind a stained glass window of sorts and let it either shine through or become obscured by the glass. So in the interest of merely showing and example and saving time, I made a box of stained glass and placed inside of it an object that is a source of light.

The challenge for you is to create a piece in which a source of light, a neon sign, is lit behind a stained glass window of some kind. The contrast between the sign and the window is important as is how much of the light is allowed to filter through. The glass could be think and diffuse a great deal of the light or it could be thin and the message of the sign could shine through easily. The decision perhaps is aesthetic, but that's what being an artist is about isn't it? The balance between elegance and deliberate blatancy.

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