Native Neon Residency Gives Native Artists a First Entry Into Neon
A new residency in Kingston, New York, is trying to change who gets to work in neon. The Walker Youngbird Foundation, a Native-led nonprofit focused on supporting Indigenous artists, has launched Native Neon in collaboration with Lite Brite Neon Studio, offering Native artists a chance to fabricate a work in the medium even if they have never used it before.
The inaugural resident is Sarah Rowe (Ponca Tribe of Nebraska), whose practice centers on painting and installation. Reid Walker, who helps lead the foundation, said the program was intentionally built for artists without prior neon experience. The point, he said, is to open access to a medium that can be difficult to enter because of its technical demands and the infrastructure required to produce it.
Rowe was selected from more than 100 applicants. Rather than asking for a finished proposal, the foundation asked artists to describe how they might translate their existing practice into a new format. Walker said that approach was deliberate: the residency is meant to be collaborative, with planning meetings before the artist arrives and 7 to 10 days on site at Lite Brite Neon Studios.
The program is valued at about $50,000 per cycle. That budget covers fabrication, flights, lodging, a $10,000 stipend, and shipping the completed work back to the artist’s home base. Participants also retain ownership of the finished piece and its intellectual property rights.
Walker said the stipend was designed to give artists time away from their day-to-day obligations so they could focus on making. He described the residency as a way to remove practical obstacles that often keep Native artists from entering neon, a medium he sees as especially dependent on access, equipment, and specialized knowledge.
The idea took shape after Walker acquired two neon works made in collaboration with Lite Brite: the 2024 piece A Shared Horizon (Keepers of the Eastern Door, Reprise) by Watt and Jeffrey Gibson’s My heart beats for the one I love (2024), which he later donated to the Phillips Collection in 2025. A dinner conversation with Watt and Lite Brite’s creative director, matteline devries-dilling, led to a broader discussion about the barriers surrounding neon and, eventually, to Native Neon.
The Walker Youngbird Foundation, launched in 2024, has framed the residency as part of a larger effort to support Native art through grants, community projects, and museum acquisitions. For now, the program’s first test case is Rowe, whose work already moves between scale, visibility, and public space. Neon, Walker suggested, may extend that language in a new direction.
