(gentle music) [Lily] I just have very lofty beliefs about visual art.

I believe that we're creating the world.

Everything that you see in the world is designed by someone.

Artists kind of have this special role, where we can kind of like actually create the world that we believe in.

You know what I mean?

And so, I love that about art.

My name's Lily Reeves.

I'm originally from Birmingham, Alabama.

And now I live here in Phoenix, Arizona.

I'm a light and energy artist.

I have a really deep connection to Alabama.

My great-great-great grandfather, he helped erect the statue of Vulcan.

Two years ago when I was home visiting and we were up at Vulcan statue with my dad, he was like, "Oh, yeah, this is your ancestor in the plaque."

And there was this like prophecy, and then under the prophecy is like my last name.

The prophecy is cool too, it's like, talks about, you know, the people of Alabama forging a better future of art and science.

So, yeah, it all felt very serendipitous.

And reaffirming that I'm kind of like on the right path, you know?

Whenever I'm feeling down, I just think that my name is under this prophecy, you know, forged in Alabama iron on Red Mountain.

And it just gives me a lot of like, a lot of confidence.

I was really lucky to have art in high school.

And so my mom, she recognized that and she was like, "You should apply for this summer youth apprenticeship at Sloss Furnaces."

And it was at Sloss really where I really stepped into being a sculptor.

We were casting iron and learning how to weld, and it was a really formative time.

I started in Montevallo, because they had a great arts program.

And I met a lot of people from Alfred University, which is how I ended up applying to the school there.

And so I came in and immediately saw the Neon Studio.

And I was just like, "What is that?

Like, I need to know what this is."

Had all of these neon signs hung up in the door and, you know, it's like a moth to a flame.

You kind of are attracted to light.

You know, we think we're better than bugs, but we're not.

Like, we like shiny things, we like things that light up.

And so, Neon was a medium that just like really called to me because it always kind of retained that energetic quality.

And it always seemed like it was alive, you know?

And it is alive.

When I finally did get into the classes, I was like the annoying kid that was like so overly excited about being there, you know?

A lot of people learn through apprenticeships through sign shops, but I was in this really special place.

I became a more sort of conceptual artist with the medium, while still having the, you know, hands-on practice of bending it and processing it and assembling it and knowing how it's made.

And so, that opened up this whole world of possibilities for me.

It takes four years to master the art of neon bending.

It's not a hobby.

People all the time are like, "I wanna take a class, I wanna make a sign."

I'm like, "Don't get excited."

Like, you really break a lot of stuff for a really long time.

So it's a lot of practice, a lot of muscle memory, a lot of fine movements.

A lot of control that you build over years.

So you make your pattern.

You heat the glass over your fires, you bend it to your pattern.

Once you have your glass pattern, you've probably at that point broken like four or five versions of it.

And you attach your electrodes, and that is how you electrify the unit.

Once you have your gas in the tube, then you hermetically seal it off from the manifold.

And then you take it off your processing table and you hook it up to a power supply.

And that's kind of the magic of neons.

Neon, it's a colloquial term, but not everything is filled with neon gas.

Neon gas is a very traditional, red, orange, like really bright color.

But about 80 to 90% of what you see in the world is actually filled with argon.

Basically anything that's not red or orange will be argon.

Color theory is very different with objects that are made of light.

When you look at a color and it's a pigment, you're looking at a reflection of light off of an object.

When you're looking at something that emits light, you're literally ingesting the light into your eyes.

So you're kind of like eating it in a way.

It's like color theory on drugs, because it makes you feel ways that looking at a red thing doesn't make you feel, you know?

It's very abrasive and intrusive.

I use a lot of rainbows in my work.

For me, it stands for the sort of like inherent magic of the world and being alive.

And I think in our society, we have lost this ancient like deep connection with the land and with nature.

And for me, the rainbow kind of represents that magic that's very real and present, you know, if we're just receptive to it and open to it.

I try and do rainbows as much as possible in public space, 'cause I think everyone needs a little more magic in their lives.

I also use a lot of circles and ellipses.

I'm really interested in energies, and the idea that art can carry spiritual significance.

I think that art has a lot of the same qualities that we seek out in religion.

I also worked a lot of like folk artists in Birmingham, and that really kind of shaped my visual language.

And I think it's why I'm so interested in the surreal, or the occult, because I think there's like cultural qualities in Alabama that are very like southern gothic.

And, you know, the uncanny and all of these like kind of weird quirky things about Alabama that, yeah, really bled into my work and who I am.

I think that's why I'm so confident in making work.

And I just, I don't overthink it.

I think that's a wonderful thing that folk art gave me.

Even if you're not educated formally, even if you're not thinking about it, it's still just like bubbles out of you.

No one ever thinks about making art, you know?

They just do.

My birds don't think about singing, you know?

That's just what they do.

(pleasant music)