SFO

Fresh airport art from SFO, PHL, & Albany Int’l Airports

SFO Museum presents an exhibit about art from pineapple leaves

At SFO: From Pineapple to Piña: A Philippine Textile Treasure 

The newest exhibit from the SFO Museum at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is about textiles made from pineapple leaves.

Unique to the Philippines, piña is an extraordinary textile made by weaving the fibers of the leaves of the pineapple plant. This light, airy fabric was perfectly suitable to the tropical climate. The textile enjoyed a golden age during the late eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, particularly on the island of Panay, where it was made into shirts, women’s blouses, shoulder scarfs, handkerchiefs, and table linens.

A new exhibition at Albany International Airport (ALB)

Albany International Airport (ALB) will open a new Gallery exhibition on May 7. The Life Around Us, features recent paintings by Ashley Norwood Cooper and Heidi Johnson, as well as a new site-specific installation, Stream by Laura Moriarty.

Iced Coffee With Friends – by Heidi Johnson

Route pins from PHL Airport

And Philadelphia International Airport (PHL) recently handed out pins created by local artists to celebrate the return of several transatlantic flights. Great idea!

SFO’s plastic water bottle ban.

The ban on the sale of single-use plastic water bottles at San Francisco International Airport (SFO) goes into effect on September 20th.

The move requires all airport retailers, restaurants, airline lounges, and vending machines to sell or provide water in recyclable aluminum, glass or BPI-certified compostable bottles.

The policy applies to purified water, mineral water, carbonated or sparkling water, and electrolyte-enhanced water, but does not include flavored beverages such as sodas, teas, or juices.

In a statement, SFO says it has provided retailers with a list of approved alternatives to plastic water bottles and will continue to update this list as the market for plastic-free bottled water evolves.

Of course, you don’t need to buy a bottle of water at SFO. A great option is to bring along a reusable container and fill it up at any of SFO’s approximately 100 free Hydration Stations and drinking fountains, located in all terminals both pre- and post-security.

If you don’t have your own bottle, Brita will help you out. On September 20, when the single-use plastic water bottle ban goes into effect at SFO, Brita will hand out more than 1000 complimentary Stainless Steel Premium Filtering Water Bottles. These have a double wall insulation to keep water cold for up to 24 hours and come with a replaceable filter that reduces chlorine taste and odor.

Marking the 50th anniversary of Summer of Love

San Francisco is marking the 50th anniversary of the ‘Summer of Love’ with a kaleidoscope of events celebrating the summer of 1967, when an estimated 100,000 young people made their way to the city’s Haight-Ashbury district to be part of a fresh, hip scene.

Back then, “San Francisco was fertile ground for an emerging counterculture movement that blossomed into a season that changed the world, giving rise to art, technologies, revolutionary politics, the international hippie lifestyle, and fostering emerging rock musicians,” said Anthea Hartig, CEO and executive director the California Historical Society, “All of which continue to resonate today.”

Wearing tie-dyed clothing and a flower in your hair isn’t required when attending a Summer of Love happening, but it would certainly be groovy to do so.

Especially today, Saturday, May 13, during Flowers in your Hair Day,” honoring the pop song “San Francisco (Be Sure to Wear Flowers in Your Hair)” that became a “flower-power anthem” for the summer and for the hippie movement.

Today local radio stations will play the song at noon and flowers will be distributed at various spots throughout the city, including at San Francisco International Airport, where United Airlines’ specially-numbered flight 1967 will arrive from Los Angeles at Gate 67.

Travelers will be able to take selfies with Madame Tussaud wax figures of  Jerry Garcia, and Jimi Hendrix – and in a cut-out of a hippie bus,’ the Gay Men’s Chorus will sing the song of the day.

(More ‘Flowers in Your Hair Day’ events here.)

Many other “Summer of Love” anniversary events are planned or already underway. Here’s a sampling:

On Sunday, May 7, the annual How Weird Street Faire in downtown San Francisco will celebrate the Summer of Love with music, costumes, dancing, fun exhibits, circus stage shows, live and exhibited artwork, and more.

The Monterey International Pop Festival will take place at the Monterey County Fairgrounds on June 16-18, 2017. The event is scheduled on the exact same dates as the now legendary three-day festival that took place in 1967, when Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, The Who, Ravi Shankar and Otis Redding made early career appearances.

Through August 20, 2017, the de Young Museum in Golden Gate Park is hosting “The Summer of Love Experience: Art, Fashion, and Rock & Roll,” exhibition, featuring more than 400 posters, fashion creations, photographs, political artwork and other cultural artifacts of the time, as well as music and commissioned light shows.

80 photographs by iconic photographer Jim Marshall chronicling the hippie movement and American music icons, such as the Grateful Dead and Jimi Hendrix, from 1965-1970 are on display in the San Francisco Arts Commission Galleries at City Hall through June 23, 2017. (Admission: free).

Ohio to San Francisco, 1967. Photo_Herb Greene. In ‘On the Road to the Summer of Love’ t the California Historical Society beginning May 12, 2017.

And through September 10, 2017 the California Historical Society is hosting “On the Road to the Summer of Love,” featuring a wide array of photographs and cultural ephemera as well as a variety of associated events and lectures.

Tours and more

A long list of other Summer of Love-themed music festivals, lectures, exhibitions and events can be found here, including ideas for a wide-range of offbeat, year-round walking, bus and (even) Segway tours, such as the Haight Ashbury Flower Power Walking Tour and the Magic Bus Experience, billed as a “mind-bending combination of professional theater, film, music and sightseeing” transporting tour going back in time to the summer of 1967.

Can’t make it to San Francisco? Consider Cleveland.

In Cleveland, Ohio, the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame’s newest exhibit, “Rolling Stone: 50,” celebrates the 50th anniversary of Rolling Stone Magazine, which was first published in San Francisco in November 1967, just a few months after the Summer of Love.

On view through Winter 2017 and occupying the top three floors of the museum, the exhibit draws on Rolling Stone’s explores the impact the magazine had on politics, popular culture and on the careers of individual artists.

 

 

Travel Tidbits: airports offer art, history & music

MKE Slalom

“Slalom” at Milwaukee’s General Mitchell Int’l Airport

Milwaukee’s General Mitchell International Airport has a new piece of art – a kinetic work by Tim Prentice called Slalom in the baggage claim area.

The piece includes a gently undulating ribbon of reflective kinetic elements that float overhead and weave through the building’s support columns and will create an “ever-changing sequence of varied and unpredictable effects,” said Prentice.

SFO Museum presents: I Love You, California

SFO SNAKE

Red diamond rattlesnake skeleton. Courtesy of Ray Bandar & SFO Museum

At San Francisco International Airport, the SFO Museum is presenting “I Love You, California,” an exhibit exploring the state’s natural history through the collections of the California Academy of Sciences. Look for “invertebrates from abalone to deep sea squid, birds such as acorn woodpeckers and tufted puffins, plant pressings including the state flower, the California poppy, land and marine mammal skulls, fossils, and a myriad of minerals,” illustrating the diversity of the “Golden State.”

The exhibit is in the Departures Level, pre-security, of SFO’s International Terminal through January, 2016, but if you don’t think you’ll be going that way before then you can see a selection of the items displayed here.

Free concerts

And in the Washington, D.C. area, Washington Dulles International Airport and Reagan National Airport are presenting the fifth season of the Summer Jazz Series of free concerts.

DCA JAZZ

At Dulles, the concerts will take place near the East Security Checkpoint on the ticketing level between 2:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. On Thursday July 30th, Two Smooth Duo will offer R&B tunes; on Thursday August 13, Lennard Jack and Fusion will play Caribbean jazz.

At Reagan National, concerts will be held from 12:30 to 2 p.m. pre-security on the Concourse Level across from Cosi near Terminal C or across from Cibo near Terminal B. The line-up includes the Heart Song Trio on Thursday, July 23, Lennard Jackson and Fusion on Friday, July 31 and the Potomac Jazz Project (classical jazz) on both Thursday, August 6 and Thursday, August 13. More details here.

Airports adding – and rejecting – ride-shares

Flying car

Airports across the country are grappling with how to deal with taxi-alternative services and Transportation Network Companies (TNCs) such as Uber and each week a few deals are being made.

This week San Francisco International Airport (SFO) announced an agreement with Wingz, a company that connects citizen drivers with people needing airport rides. The pilot permit allows drivers to pick up and drop off at the airport, starting within the next 30 days.

Last month, SFO announced agreements with Sidecar, Lyft and UberX, awarding each a permit for a 90-day pilot program to allow the airport to evaluate the businesses.

This week, the Houston City Council approved rules granting Uber and other app-based companies access to the Houston airports, but in Cincinnati, signs are now posted at CVG airport alerting travlers that only permitted ride-share companies have permission to operate at the airport.