"Oh, God. How boring is that?" she moans. "I'm glad I'm sitting down, or else I'd pass out from boredom."

I've just read Jurs a question from a survey recently given out at the Greater Rochester International Airport. To paraphrase: Should the airport focus on serving the local arts community or on the needs of business and leisure travelers? Eighty-nine percent chose the latter, says airport director David Damelio.

"Does it have to make a choice?" Jurs says. "There's no separation between art and business. The people who are in business are the people who buy the art. It's just ridiculous."

Damelio says it's a balancing act and that officials are trying to meet the varying needs of the three million people who travel through the airport yearly.

"It's a process that's difficult, and we're not going to make everybody happy," he says. "Certainly not Wendell Castle or Nancy Jurs, that's for sure."

Airport art is always a hot topic in Rochester. Jurs' sculpture and one created by her husband, Wendell Castle, were removed from the airport in 2006 to make way for renovations. There's no timetable for the art to return.

Castle's piece, Lunar Eclipse, is a clock on top of a misaligned, segmented column. It's more than 19 feet tall. Jurs' piece, Triad, is a 12-foot tall ceramic structure. Airport authorities paid $175,000 for Lunar Eclipse in 1991. They paid $80,000 for Triad in 1992.

Airport authorities do three or four surveys a year to measure performance, quizzing respondents on parking, cleanliness, and other areas, Damelio says.

"We try to figure out what we need to do to compete with other airports," he says.

A few hundred surveys are given out at the airport over a single day and the results are kept in-house, he says.

The art survey was completed by 375 people, Damelio says. Three of the five questions deal directly with art. The first asks if you support the county's decision to put the Midtown Clock of Nations at the airport, calling the clock a "community treasure." According to Damelio, 56 percent of respondents supported that decision, 7 percent did not, and 26 percent had no opinion.

The next question asks how important art is at the airport. Forty-eight percent said it was important, Damelio says, and 52 percent said it was unimportant or they didn't care.

"Contrary to what the arts community may feel or think they might know, 65 percent of people who travel through the airport travel for business," he says. "They want to make sure they have clean bathrooms, we have free Internet...."

The controversy over airport art was infused with new energy recently when Castle seemed to diss the Clock of Nations in the press. He called the clock "1960's kitsch" with "zero artistic value."

"He kind of took a stand, because somebody had to," Jurs says.

The clock was taken out of the doomed mall for temporary relocation to the airport. It'll eventually wind up at the Golisano Children's Hospital.

Castle doesn't have anything against the Clock of Nations, Jurs says. But his reaction is understandable when you consider that, at least on the surface, it looks like airport officials are favoring the Clock of Nations over Castle's piece.

"It's a putdown," she says. "No question about it."

Castle and Jurs might not care for the Midtown clock, Damelio says, but plenty of other people do. Castle might not think the clock is art, he says, but some people probably feel the same way about Castle's work.

While Jurs may have doubts, Damelio says he wants to keep both Triad and Lunar Eclipse as a "valuable part of our airport." And as renovations are completed, officials will evaluate where the sculptures can be placed, he says.