Albany International Airport

Travel Tidbits from San Diego & Albany Airports

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Here are some airport-related travel tidbits to start off the week.

SAN LACTATION ROOM

Courtesy San Diego Int’l Airport.

San Diego International is the latest airport to add lactation rooms for nursing mothers.

SAN’s 3 nursing rooms are located post-security: two in Terminal 1 and one in Terminal 2 – and include a hand washing station, electrical outlets, comfortable seating, artwork, a children’s seat and soft lighting.

ALB Airport art

Sitting Pretty, John McQueen, mixed media, 2011

There’s also a new art exhibit at Albany International Airport in New York.

The work of eight artists who blur and cross the lines between “folk” and “fine” art is featured in “Folk Modern.”

“…[T]the wall between them has been crumbling for some time, and inhabitants of both sides have been finding much common ground. This exhibition brings together individuals whose work occupies a territory in which qualities at once traditional and innovative ancestral and personal are seen to coexist and thrive.”

Pipedream, Giselle Potter, Collage and gouache on paper, 2010

Pipedream, Giselle Potter, Collage and gouache on paper, 2010

Albany International Airport & the selfies

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Albany

That’s not really the New York State Capitol – it’s the Albany International Airport.

But go ahead – take a selfie.

For travelers who haven’t had time to hit all the hot spots in and around Albany, officials at Albany International Airport set up a Selfie Spot on Concourse C with an over-sized photograph of the State Capitol.

“Sightseers touring Albany have always found the State Capitol to be one of the most breathtaking landmarks in upstate New York,” said John A. O’Donnell, CEO of the Albany County Airport Authority. “The Airport Capitol Selfie Site gives travelers an opportunity to recapture that moment and to digitally place themselves in the shadow of the seat of New York State government before they leave on their flights.”

The family above are the Gilberts of Queensbury, NY. They were on their way to Disney World but took advantage of the new photo op at ALB airport before they flew off.

Airports offer fresh art for travelers

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If you enjoy spending your leisure time visiting art galleries, but instead end up wasting time in airports, you’re in luck. This season, many airports around the country are hosting intriguing temporary exhibitions and unveiling new permanent public artwork that can turn a long layover into a cultural adventure. Or at least keep you from getting bored.

Here are a few highlights of fresh airport art from my current “At the Airport” column on USATODAY.com.

Included in the story is the  “Environmental Steward-ess” outfit Nancy Judd of Recycle Runway made out of old leather seat covers from Delta Air Lines.

 

There’s also a new exhibit at New York’s Albany International Airport. In Keeping Time, seven artists explore nostalgia with “an eye for its intimate, humorous and often bittersweet nature,” says Sharon Bates, director of the airport’s art and culture program. Included in the show are paintings, several large site-specific installations and collages made from old paint-by-number paintings.

It's in the Book - by Ken Ragsdale

 

And, at Florida’s Jacksonsville International Airport, there’s a fun exhibition titled Kites and Flights with work by Melanie Walker and George Peters.

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Book art at Albany International Airport (ALB)

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In New York, the Albany International Airport (ALB) Art and Culture Program has just kicked off “The Imaged Word,” an exhibition featuring works by a variety of artists all on the theme of books and the words inside them.  Most of the work is in the airport’s (pre-security) third floor gallery, the same floor as the Observation Gallery, but at least one piece makes impressive use of the stairwell leading to the gallery.

Here are a few samples of what you’ll see.

Imaged Word at Albany Airport - Building Bridges

Detail from Aaron Stephan's "Building Bridges"

Aaron Stephan’s Building Bridges installation is made up of eight foot high arched columns of books arranged so that they seem to recede into the distance of a darkened room.

In See No Evil, an altered book by Robert The, a scarab (talisman for warding off evil) seems to be escaping from a book filled with photographs of New York State politicians and influential people.

Robert The's "See No Evil"

Robert The's "See No Evil" - altered book

And in Hanging Index #20:Last Lines, by Scott McCarney, pages of a book have been cut, line by line, so that they cascade out of the book into a cloud of text that hovers over the stairwell leading to the gallery.

Work by Scott McCarney

Scott McCarney's "Hanging Index #20: Last Lines"

The Imaged Word will be at New York’s Albany International Airport through January 9, 2011.

13 million cranberries, Dusseldorf Airport’s Ski jump, and Amelia Earhart

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This weekend would be a good time to have as my superpower the ability to travel anywhere in the world and be in several places at once.

If I could, I’d stop first in Richmond, British Columbia, a short SkyTrain ride away from the Vancouver International Airport to watch 13 million (!!) locally-grown cranberries get dumped into the Fraser River in front of the Richmond Olympic Oval to form a  giant floating version of the maple leaf, rings and flame that make up the Canadian Olympic Committee logo.

Then I’d head over to the Dusseldorf International Airport to see if they finished trucking in enough snow (and turned the temperature down low enough) to make the world’s first indoor ski jump in an airport.   When they sent this photo, they were just waiting for the snow to arrive.

It would be fun, too, to stop at New York’s Albany International Airport (ALB), where the newest art show, Material Witness, is now underway.

And it might be interesting to touch down in Wichita, Kansas.  The Wichita Art Museum is one of the 100 or so museums around the country where Bank of America account holders can get free admission this weekend as part of the Museums on Us program.  And look what the Wichita Art Museum is using to promote an exhibition of works of paper.


(Robert Cottingham, Wichita (1985)

But, alas, the ability to be everywhere at once is not my super power.

So instead, I’ll stick close to home this weekend and pay a visit to the Museum of Flight, just up the road from Seattle-Tacoma International Airport, where there’s an exhibit titled  In Search of Amelia Earhart.

This exhibit includes many of Earhart’s personal artifacts,  including a suede jacket she wore on her 1932 solo transatlantic flight, two flight suits, a helmet,  a scarf,  newsreel footage and photos.

Amelia Earhart and her Lockheed L-10E Electra NR 16020 c. 1937. | The Museum of Flight