My buddy Michael Johnson sent me a note last week:
“My dad’s photography work is up at SFO’s international terminal.”
Boy is it!
Not sure why I didn’t know this before, but Michael’s dad is David Johnson. And David Johnson “was the first African American student of Ansel Adams. In Adams’ school, Johnson was advised to photograph his own neighborhood and document the faces and places with which he was most familiar. He subsequently became an important chronicler of black life in San Francisco in the middle part of the 20th century.”
If you’re traveling to or through Portland International Airport (PDX) this week, make sure to take a look at the exhibit in Terminal E focusing on the history of 3D photography and film in Oregon.
The exhibit features 3D technology from the invention of the stereoscopic viewer to the View-Master, which was invented and manufactured in Portland.
(Courtesy: The Passenger; via Creative Commons)
Also included is a ¼ scale garden set and puppets from the movie Coraline, by LAIKA, a Portland-based animation company. Coraline was the first stop-motion feature to be conceived and photographed in stereoscopic 3D.
Tampa International Airport is one those airports with an extensive, eclectic and very valuable, collection of permanent public art.
Some of my favorite pieces in the collection include the 22 tapestries in the baggage claim area made by 20 women from Phumalanga, Swaziland in Africa.
(Photo courtesy Tampa Airport)
And the seven WPA-era murals by George Snow Hill depicting the history of flight.
These murals are especially incredible to see because they were ignored for years and almost destroyed.
From the airport’s website:
In the late 1930’s, local artist George Snow Hill was commissioned to create these murals to adorn the walls of Tampa’s newly built Peter O. Knight Airport. Hill artistically interpreted the history of flight through the contributions made by Icarus and Daedalus, Archimedes, The Montgolfier Brothers, Otto Lilienthal, Tony Jannus, The Wright Brothers, and a triptych, capturing the first scheduled airline flight in history.
The murals were removed from the walls of the Peter O. Knight Airport upon demolition in 1965, and restored by George Snow Hill himself. In 1971, they were relocated to the new terminal building, where only the triptych and the Wright Brothers mural hung in the airport’s executive suite. The others were rolled and placed in storage, untouched for years.
You can read more about the Tampa airport’s art collection here, but be sure to scroll down to the notes about a brand new temporary exhibit featuring blown glass vessels and sculptures by Owen Pach, on display in the airport’s renovated art gallery.
“Fiery Passion – The Beauty of Glass”will be on display through March 2011.
For more information about Owen Pach, see this website.
Daylight Saving Time (DST) ends at 2 a.m. Sunday morning when we “fall back” to standard time by turning our clocks back one hour.
As you rush around resetting the clocks on the microwave, the TV and the bedside alarm, imagine yourself watching time fly in one of the clock-worthy cities I included in the slide-show-style story I put together for msnbc.com this week: How time flies! Where to see the world’s clocks.
(Courtesy Metro-North Railroad)
The story includes the information booth clock at New York City’s Grand Central Station, clock and watch museums in Pennsylvania and Connecticut, what may be the oldest continually running town clock (in Winnsboro, South Carolina), and the Bily Clocks Museum in Spillville, Iowa, which is home to 43 intricately carved clocks, some more than ten feet tall, made by Joseph and Frank Bily over the course of 45 years.
The Bily Brothers’ clocks have themes ranging from art and religion to history and culture. The collection includes an American Pioneer History Clock, an Apostle Clock, a violin-shaped clock honoring Czech composer Antonin Dvorkak (above) and an airplane-shaped clock (below) made to commemorate Charles Lindbergh’s trans-Atlantic flight. (That propeller moves!)
(Courtesy: Bily Clocks Museum)
In researching the story, I also came upon this film documenting the incredible video mapping project done to mark the 600th anniversary of Prague’s astronomical clock in Old Town Square.
There are more than 700 aviation and space-related museums in this country. Each Monday we try to profile one of them. Eventually we’ll visit them all.
This week, we’re stopping at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport, which has an exhibit of photos, videos and historic memorabilia celebrating its 75th anniversary.
According to airport history notes, the city of Phoenix purchased Sky Harbor Airport on July 16, 1935 for $100,000. That November, a dedication event took place that included speeches, an aerial circus performance and a dinner dance.
The original terminal building, hangar and tower were located on the north side of today’s airport property and at one time a chapel with a bell stood at the entrance of the airport.
Arizona didn’t require a three-day waiting period for couples wanting to get married, so the airport hoped to generate business by having an on-site wedding chapel for couples wanting to tie the knot as soon as possible.
Interested in learning more about the history of Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport?
75 Years of Nonstop Service will be on exhibit until March 13, 2011 in the pre-security area of Terminal 3. You can also go online, to Sky Harbor’s History section to watch video clips and read excerpts from research done for the airport’s 50th anniversary.
