Austin Way Magazine - GreenGale Publishing - There is a place beyond the crowds, beyond the ropes, where dreams are realized and success is celebrated. You are invited.
Issue link: http://digital.greengale.com/i/692367
6 AUSTINWAY.com PhotograPhy by NathaNiel ChaPiN THAT AUSTIN GLOW ARTIST EVAN VOYLES'S NEON CALLING CARDS LIGHT OUR WAY HOME. When the sun goes down, Austin's best view may be one of Evan Voyles's neon signs. About 260 of them glow across the city, and his 27-year-old company Neon Jungle (i.e., Voyles and an assistant) has a backlog of orders. The native Austinite and self-taught artist doesn't advertise; businesses find him. He'll size them up with the light and traffic and sketch out his vision, ideally on a cocktail napkin. "I get my idea in the first five minutes or not at all," he says. "Clients become my friends: I eat at their restaurants, drink at their bars. I work for the pleasure of the tribe." His favorite sign was his first, for Tesoros in 1994. Fashion designer and store general manager Gail Chovan would call Voyles to fix the malfunc- tioning sign and "discuss my inadequacies." The two are now married with 10-year-old twins. The sign glows on. Neon Jungle is housed in a century-old former grocery store next to Chovan's atelier. Voyles, a Yale liberal arts grad, gets a kick out of mixing art and commerce. "It's hard to walk away from the bully pulpit of the street," he says. "I get to make stuff that everyone can look at." . FRONT RUNNER