Art I'm Looking At: Exhibits at the San Francisco Airport (Jun 28, 2012)

Visiting the San Francisco Airport is always a pleasure. It's not just an airport, it's a museum. There's always something worthwhile to see. The shows are generally small, but always top notch. I was out there yesterday and enjoyed seeing a collection of "pillows" and headrests--made of unlikely materials such as wood, woven bamboo, and porcelain--entitled "Sleeping Beauties: Headrests from the Fowler Museum at UCLA;" a collection of beautifully crafted household items, many of them in silver, called "Form, Function, and Beauty: Design Variations in Metlawork from the Margo Grant Walsh Collection"(through end-December 2012); and a fabulous group of 1950s and 1960s Italian motorbikes, called "Moto Bellissima." The motorbikes are all beautifully restored to show off richly colored paint (mostly red) and a lot of dazzling chrome tubing (through the end of July).

The little Aviation Museum was closed for an event, but a collection of remarkably fine aircraft models was on display, visible from outside (all the work of one man, Jim Lind). The models in the exhibit are a small fraction of his collection of some 1,600 models in 1:72 scale--which makes a Boeing 747 about a yard long. The show focuses on aircraft that flew transoceanic routes and features a number of nicely rendered flying boats (through the end of July). See the SFO Museum website for details. Always something to see....