Upcoming and recent events
• Kunstraum LLC, Member Artist: Brooklyn, NY, Summer 2025
• Georgia Southern University (GSU), Center for Art & Theater, Contemporary Gallery, Prismatic: MFA Summer Group Exhibition, May 12-June 26
• Shona Macdonald, studio visit, Backstage Graduate Studio, Georgia Southern University Gallery, Tuesday, March 4, 2025
Newcomb Sign Family Heirloom, 2019
(Georgia Trust for Historic Preservation Project)
sculpture
30” x 14’8” x 45”
on display by appointment Albany, Ga
Toward the end of my undergraduate senior year, my studio practice involved a neon commercial sign made during the Populuxe and Google architectural period from the 1940s-60’s. The sign stood alone and advertised my family's business. The sign represented the business Newcomb Mayflower and Antiques. That existed between 1954 and 1973. Around 98% of the signs created during this period have vanished because they were scrapped. This yearlong process of rehabilitation, restoration, and conservation involved my collaboration with local lighting engineer Bobby Harris and the owner/shapester Rafe Holt at Classic City Neon within Athens, GA. Materials include being 30- year lead argon-filled bulbs and no longer produced in the lighting, the lettering and frame are steel along with the letters coated in porcelain and plexiglass for protection, and the whole piece is designed as technologically engineered for outdoor weather. My involvement with the sign is not only sentimental but also conservational. The Newcomb Sign is in its most original state. “In the ’50s, Architects began to equate neon with commercial vulgarity, but the public as a whole had not yet turned against it.” Says Philip Langdon.