White-plate special.

If my sister wasn't late picking me up at the airport, I would have missed this artwork completely. But since she was still sitting on her couch while I was deplaning, I was forced to hangout for a while in SLC's baggage claim.

A snowstorm had just dumped a few feet of snow in the mountains, so I was surrounded by Ikon season passholders jonesing to hit the slopes. I stared at them as they grabbed their skis off a slick new baggage-claim carousel designed exclusively for these expensive toys. I thought that carousel was pretty darn cool until I turned around.

Then I saw them. These huge white dinner plates stacked like snow is on a Wasatch Mountain. I wondered how many times I had walked by them and not noticed them. My sister flies in and out of that airport all the time and says she has never seen them. Maybe travelers are just too focused on getting from point A to point B to enjoy the art that lies in-between.

Artist Gordon Huether has poetically scattered stacks of these “Plates” throughout the airport. Their soft white light adds a contemporary slickness. Titled Plates, the artwork makes a statement about feminism without even trying. There is a universality to a stack of dinner plates that I never thought about until now. The Plates speak of winter fun and bring joy to everyone who comes and goes – as long as they slow down long enough to notice them.