Neon love signs bring a touch of romance to Wakefield commuters

Both have been a feature of a public art installation that has been entertaining and provoking commuters in and out of Wakefield for the past 12 months. The highly visible art is part of a project that comes to a close next week – and which hides behind it a story of love and loss that adds an extra layer of poignancy travellers who have seen the work may not be aware of.

The installation, 12 Months of Neon Love, has seen visual artists Richard Wheater and Victoria Lucas collaborate on a project which created neon signs featuring lyrics from love songs.

The signs, which ranged in size, were then posted on the side of the Neon Workshops building in Wakefield, which can be clearly seen from trains leaving or entering the city.

“Music and love are two universal things that resonate with us,” says Richard Wheater, who specialises in working in neon.

“We started a website and a blog and people seemed to be finding it. The project started out quite slowly and then soon gained a momentum of its own.”

Starting in February last year with a neon sign featuring lyrics from the Elvis song I’m All Shook Up, the sign changed monthly with lyrics from songs Let Love Speak Up Itself by The Beautiful South and REM’s This One Goes Out to the One I Love.

October turned out to be the cruellest month for, while the signs were being seen by thousands each month, a real love story was being played out as life imitated art.

Victoria Lucas says: “We’ve known each other as artists for a few years, but we began a relationship a couple of months before the project started. We agreed that whatever happened we would continue to work on the project until the end of the 12 month period.”

In September last year, the couple split up. The following month’s lyric, which had already been chosen at the start of the project, was Love, love will tear us apart, again from Joy Division.

“It was a coincidence, we weren’t using the project to play out our personal relationship in a public art installation,” says Wheater.

“But it was interesting that the lyrics we chose encapsulated the whole spectrum of love and relationships, from that honeymoon period to the more painful side of loving relationships.”

This, the final month of the project, features a neon sign with the lyrics from the Annie Lennox song No More I Love Yous.

Wheater, who runs neon workshops in Wakefield, says: “Neon is so associated with commercialism that it took a long time for the council to grant us permission to even put up the signs,” he says.

“When the Arts Council provided funding, it helped us make the case that this was a public piece of art – and the comments we’ve received on the blog have testified that it has really struck a chord with people.”

The project comes to an end, appropriately, on Valentine’s Day, next Tuesday, when the remaining signs will be auctioned off. Six of the signs are still available and a book, featuring all of the signs, will go on sale in April.

The auction is at BEAM, Wakefield, 3pm, Feb 14.

Details at www.12monthsofneonlove.blog.com