HELLO, YOU HAVE REACHED GLOTUBE

Glotube illuminates the past and the present. I create custom neon and restore vintage neon and porcelain enamel signs.

I've been in the neon business for 30 years now. For the last 20 I've worked out of my own shop on School Road in Greenville, Wis. I have an old phone in there, a landline for my business, which is a bit of an anachronism in its own right in a space full of vintage neon signs. It sits on a grey industrial desk that's even older than the phone itself. Next to the phone, among the rolled up sign patterns, dusty business cards, and brittle magazines, is the machine that answers most of the calls placed to the land line. The answering machine greets callers with, "Hello, you have reached Glotube. Please leave a message." It's my voice, preserved in a long-lost moment of time, and when it answers a call, it most likely connects the antiquated device to a customer using a smart phone. I like to think that's what I do with Glotube; I connect the past to the present with neon and porcelain enamel signs.