(FORTUNE Small Business) – At the age of 3, Matt Dilling wanted his chocolate birthday cake in the shape of an electrical plug. By 13, he was informally apprenticed to an electrician. At 19, the art school dropout opened Lite Brite Neon Studio in Brooklyn, creating custom neon store and window displays for such clients as Calvin Klein, Chanel, Old Navy, and Ralph Lauren. The result: annual sales of $300,000, hundreds of projects under his belt, and a reputation as the neon wunderkind of Fifth Avenue.

His commissions have included the Burberry plaid in neon, an 18-foot rainbow in Stella McCartney's New York City store, and a neon blade that slid down the throat of a Coney Island sword swallower. For an event at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City, Dilling installed a neon argyle pattern on the ceiling. He has also done restoration work on old neon signs for the Baltimore Museum of Art and the National Heritage Museum in Lexington, Mass. (The heyday for neon business signs ran from the late 1920s until the 1940s, when cheaper plastics came of age.) Around 10% of Dilling's revenues come from renting out stock signs such as NO VACANCY and BAR for film and TV sets. His red neon LIQUOR appeared in Sex and the City. Dilling's handiwork costs from $400 for a simple word to $50,000 for elaborate pieces. This month marks the peak of Dilling's busy season, as he works on signs for Fifth Avenue's holiday window displays. While his work has been shown in art galleries, Dilling is now more focused on another mode of expression: "I see creating a business as a giant art project," he says. —JULIE SLOANE