Bill FitzGibbons, 63, has designed light-sculpture installations for the facades of the Alamo and San Fernando Cathedral in San Antonio, as well as the Reykjavik City Hall in Iceland and dozens of other public spaces. He spoke with reporter Marc Myers.  I probably look at lighting and color a little differently than most people. I'm a sculptor who works with LED fixtures to create installations that project color onto the facades of public spaces like the Alamo and highway overpasses.  The colors I choose and how I program them to change are meant to provoke an emotional response. This includes my neighbors, since one of my installations—"Casa Spectrum"—projects onto the front of my home in San Antonio.  My wife, Ann, and I moved to San Antonio from Alaska in 1988 after the economy up there bottomed out. I was head of the sculpture department at the Visual Arts Center of Alaska in Anchorage when the person who was in charge of the state's public-art program became the dean of the San Antonio Art Institute. He hired me to head the sculpture program, but when my wife and I moved to Texas, the house we bought wound up being too small for our three kids and large art collection.  Fortunately in 1995 we found a four-bedroom, four-bath home on the market that was owned by a doctor who had recently divorced and no longer wanted to live there. The guy's wife was a photographer, and there were lots of walls and track lighting, as well as an interior courtyard and a huge swimming pool out back.  The home was built in the '80s and was perfect. The exterior is made of limestone and looks like a Wild West prison from the front—narrow windows and a wood door. The interior is lit by a series of skylights that let in natural light, as well as floodlights and halogen spots on tracks to illuminate art on the walls. I can't stand fluorescent bulbs—the color they throw off is ghoulish.  When I was young, I started out studying to be a painter. But when I put a strip of neon on one of my canvases in the early '70s, the interaction between the warm red light and the paint was mesmerizing. I soon dropped the paint and canvas and began sculpting with light. For 15 years, most of my work involved neon fixtures. But in 2005 I discovered computerized LED light systems. Neon is great in certain environments, but when you're projecting light onto a massive facade, LED fixtures are much stronger and more efficient. The light they throw off also interacts with the surface, allowing for shadows and texture to play a role.  I installed "Casa Spectrum" at my home in 2009—months after I used 30 LED fixtures to illuminate the Alamo. A book-sized computer allowed me to determine where to place the fixtures and then program the color of each fixture, as well as how often and fast the colors would change. The fixtures can last about 20 years if they're not on every day, and they use a tenth of the electricity needed for regular lighting.  I usually turn on "Casa Spectrum" when guests are due to arrive or they're leaving. I also use it when I want to experiment for upcoming installation projects. It's sort of an outdoor color test kitchen. But the installation is a little robust for most of my older neighbors, who tend to be proper and reserved. I'm on a dead-end street, so whenever I turn on the piece, a lot of grandchildren of homeowners come by on bikes asking why I've chosen one color or another.  I love this kind of magical connection that occurs when people realize I'm trying to tell them something through the art—that it's not just a light show. My home's front facade is 60 feet long and 12 feet tall. For me, "Casa Spectrum" combines disciplines needed for painting and music. I select colors the way I'd select paint for a canvas. Then, how I sequence the changing colors is about tempo and rhythm.  The strangest reaction I've had from a neighbor is when I was asked if it was dangerous to touch the house when the lights were on. But my favorite comment came recently from another neighbor on my street. She had always been very quiet and reserved. One night I turned on the installation and was outside talking to a friend who was leaving when she wandered over. She said she liked the lights and added, "I just want you to know that I sit in my dining room and watch whenever these lights are on." Who could have imagined? But that's what it's all about for me: making people feel something—especially those who you thought wouldn't care.
Bill FitzGibbons, the artist who lit up the Alamo, uses lights to reinterpret the facade of his San Antonio home.