Hands at the Airport

San Jose Airport Hands

When you drive by the San Jose Airport you will see more than 50 hands of Silicon Valley residents waving hello and goodbye and raising to the sky on the mural called Hands.

Whose hands were used for this art?: “Participating community members represent a spectrum of the South Bay’s population, including a tamale maker and a surgeon, teachers and students, technologists and construction workers, musicians and poets, parents and children, police officers and fire fighters.” (https://www.americansforthearts.org/by-program/networks-and-councils/public-art-network/public-art-year-in-review-database/hands)

San Jose Airport Hands

Artist Christian Moeller designed the mural on the parking garage that is constructed of hundreds of thousands of plastic pixels affixed to a metal fence hung on the parking garage. (https://christianmoeller.com/Hands-1)

CalFire Fire Station Mural

CalFire Mural

I really like this mural. I had seen it once on social media and wondered where it was. I tried searching for it online with no luck and keeping my eyes open for weeks. Recently, I went for a drive just to get out of the house for a bit. While driving back towards home through Morgan Hill, I saw it! So excited! The search, the wait, the find… so many things go in to pleasure.

I learned that it was designed by Morgan Hill Art School (www.morganhillartschool.org) and, I believe, painted by volunteers. Some great location icons are in the mural, too. In addition to the firefighters, you will see Lick Observatory atop Mt. Hamilton, the Box atop Mt. Umunhum, and the Beacon atop Mt. Diablo.

I am glad that I do not need to be a firefighter and so grateful that there are firefighters protecting us.

NASA

NASA
Just a corner of the largest wind tunnel in the world at NASA Ames Research Center in Mountain View. So big that full size airliners go into it with wing spans up to 100 feet across.
NASA
A close up of the wood from the original fan blades of the wind tunnel. Each blade is taller than a tall human and would have been one of many blades around each of the six motors filling up a four story tall space and generating the wind in the tunnel. So smooth and flush, these wood pieces.