This 29-year-old quit her corporate job to become Singapore’s only dedicated glass neon artist

SINGAPORE: Megan Foo has always loved art, to the point of taking it up as one of her A-Level subjects. 

But in university, she decided to study business instead, seeing it as a more practical option that would open doors to a stable income. After graduation, she landed a marketing job.

Yet her true passion never went away. A few years into her corporate career, she began looking for courses in Singapore to learn more about neon art, having been drawn to neon signs while on earlier trips to the United States.

Glass neon art, in particular, involves using neon gas and electricity to create glowing tubes of light in a range of colours. By heating and softening the material, it can then be bent and shaped into letters or sculptures.

The artform has been around since the early 1900s, but it was in the 1920s and 1930s that such signs became popular, particularly in the US.

After failing to find any avenues in Singapore, Ms Foo came across a three-day course in Australia and signed up. 

A spark was lit and after the course, she continued searching for anything else related to neon that she could try – such as glass blowing, which was popping up on her social media feeds.

She returned to Australia for a one-day workshop on how to inflate glass by, as the name suggests, blowing air into it.

But Ms Foo quickly realised the “very, very hot” temperatures involved were not as manageable for her as those for glass neon art.