Art on the fly: paintings perk up the walls at the airport , Yazzy's at www.williamverdult.com

Stephen Pitliuk’s paintings of bright blue and pink acrylic beach scenes and pets hang in the vestibule that leads to the courtyard waiting area at Nantucket Memorial Airport.

“His work is so colorful,” said airport arts program director Leisa Heintz, pointing out how the outside light brought out vibrant hues in the painter’s work. “It works really well in this spot.”

Heintz, who’s entering her third season

administering the airport’s arts program – from submission to selection and hanging – has become a darling of the island’s visual

arts community for providing a space where so many patrons can view their work.

“She’s really explored new ways of displaying work in that place,” said painter John Devaney. “She’s totally supportive, friendly, imaginative.”

“What’s wonderful is having current art at the gateways of the island,” Devaney said.

Heintz attended an airport art conference at Denver International Airport last year, and came back enlightened, she said.

But Nantucket can not accommodate grand-scale installation art like many of the nation’s international air travel hubs, Heintz said, nor does it have a multi-million-dollar budget to fund a permanent collection. Yet vibrantly colored art still manages to occupy just about every available piece of wall space, easily visible to the tens of thousands of travelers who stream through the second-busiest airport in the state every year.

And Nantucket’s airport arts program isunique in that it’s self-sufficient: Everything on its walls is for sale, save the exit signs.

“We don’t need anything ‘grand’ here at all,” Heintz said. “Our local artists are wonderful.”

Still, Heintz has ideas on how to fill the airport’s high ceilings in the coming years.

She plans on soliciting design ideas from artists for 12-by-three-foot silk banners to fill the crested ceiling of the baggage room.

“It’s so stark and institutional in here,” she

said, standing in the center of the room last week. “I wanted something bright to liven it up.”

Sculptor Chad Whitlock is also preparing a piece that will hang from the ceiling above Nantucket Airlines’ ticket counter. A mobile, that like the airport’s inhabitants, will be in constant motion, Heintz said.

The airport only takes a 15 percent commission when artists sell work in the space, to cover the costs of an artists’ reception every year.

And art sells there. Even in the doorway of the women’s bathroom.

“This spot has sold twice,” Heintz said, straightening a painting there. “Go figure.”

Artist Paul Galschneider sold four paintings at the airport last year, in his first season showing there, he said. The arts program also makes travelers aware of island artists’ work, Devaney said.

Devaney sold his first painting to sculptor and pharmaceutical heir Seward Johnson in the early years of the airport program, 13 years ago. Over the years, having work in the terminal has referred patrons to his regular exhibition space at Mary Beth Splaine’s South Wharf Gallery, he said.

Thirty-five artists currently show at the airport, each showing pieces for one year, or until a piece is sold. Heintz began soliciting artists’ submissions for the coming year’s show last month, and will accept submissions until June 6.

After submissions are in, and a jury of airport staff and administrators selects pieces, Heintz begins the hanging process.

Art hangs throughout the airport’s main terminal, and in the FBO, or Fixed Based Operations building, where passengers of private planes await their aircraft.

“This building gets a lot of action,” Heintz said of the FBO building. Several of Galschneider’s large oils hang there, along with painter Hannah Stone’s abstract, neon depictions of birds. Stone also has several pieces in the main terminal, including an abstract portrait of a black terrier.

Heintz got a kick out of Stone’s pet portraits. Recently, Stone painted Heintz’ 2-year-old bull mastiff, Gracie.

“We here on the island, we’re nuts about our animals,” Heintz said.

Before she worked with art, Heintz ran the gamut of airport occupations, even working for a time as an airport firefighter. Her husband Bob is an air traffic controller.

“The airport’s been good to us,” Heintz said. In turn, she sees the arts program as a service she can help the airport provide for travelers, while promoting island artists. Last week, leftover money from the program also helped sponsor the Artists’ Association of Nantucket’s Junior Artists show. Heintz was present at the show, perhaps gleaning the names of future exhibitors at the airport