So many people with so much time to spare, at least while awaiting their planes, gives airports an unrivaled audience. I think Calgary started it with exquisite native artifacts.  Some of my favorite NA airport art today follows:

This huge bronze Haida canoe, speaking to all travelers (especially those tall people squeezed into ever smaller seats on ever longer flights), catches my imagination every time I pass  through Vancouver.

More sailors are in Amsterdam’s excellent small sampling of their Reijksmuseum (sp?) where I found these youngsters.

A little South, in Seattle, the suspended flocks of birds is an oft repeated idea (Remember large flock of geese in the Eaton Center, Toronto 35 years ago? Was that the first?) which I’ve yet to see done to perfection.

Seattle  has other excellent pieces, some a little hidden

Last week, in Philadelphia, these ornate shoes by Sharon Taffet  raised the spirits of jaded travelers delayed by fog and bad weather from off-shore tropical storm “Sean”.

And in Minneapolis there is a great dynamic image of an insurance company’s umbrella which shatters into myriad small umbrellas as you walk by, and then reassembles. A good future project to photograph and link to YouTube – Any volunteers going to MN soon?

Away from the airport, in a New Jersey glass fabrication shop, I stumbled on this just approved mock-up section for the 185 ft. tall facade of the base of the nearly completed (2013 est.) World Trade Center tower, NYC, replacing those so sadly lost on 9-11.  Interesting to see this grey evening image and try to imagine how dramatic it will surely appear when installed with lights, etc.  Architects must have great imagination.