Tayler Drattlo was born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. While growing up in her grandfather’s Tejano night club, “Randy’s Ballroom,” she was surrounded by neon lights that illuminated the stage and dance floor. This exposure in her youth pushed her to re-create the colorfully lit environment in her adulthood. She studied Neon Design at The School of The Art Institute of Chicago, and started her career in the neon sign industry. Drattlo studied the craft of neon under multiple master benders, fine-tuning her skillset in tube bending and neon processing. Her neon art is heavily influenced by traditional neon sign making. She designs her patterns utilizing the language of neon bends, (double backs, right angle bends, gradual arcs), and uses industry standard torches to bend her glass to a reverse pattern. After she processes her glass, (also called bombarding), she fills the glass tubes with either Neon gas or a mix of Argon gas and Mercury. Drattlo has recently expanded her sculpture practice by incorporating thrown, slab built and sculpted stoneware into her neon practice. Drattlo believes strongly in preserving the craft of neon as a neon artisan while pushing the boundaries of the advertisement medium. You can find her work in person at Cat Eye Creative in Atlanta, Georgia. Drattlo was a 2021 Artspace Regional Emerging Artist in Residence.