Wylie looking to get arty with new city hall

by Bill Baumbach of The Collin County Observer

Sculptures will be placed in front of the two entrances to the city hall/library/recreation center.

Artist's rendition of the new Wylie City Hall

There's a new Wylie City Hall going up on FM 1378.

More properly, it is the new Municipal Complex and it will contain not only City Hall, but a new library and recreation center. The $41.5 million complex is due to be completed later this year, and it will include at least two pieces of original art commissioned by the city. To help in the selection of the new artwork, the city council appointed a Public Arts Advisory Board made up of members of the community. The board spent some months interviewing artists, finally picking three for each of the two locations, who were asked to make presentations of their ideas to the board.

Last week, after the presentations, the Advisory Board recommended two artists concepts for final approval by the city council.

For the main entrance, the board picked a piece that consists of a series of seven granite stones 12 to 14 feet tall -- each bearing a descriptive inscription. The artist is Steve Gillman.

Also submitted was "Pearl for Wylie" by Cliff Garten:

And an arch, reminiscent of a covered wagon by Brower Hatcher:

For the library entrance, the board chose a piece titled "Community Symphony" by Living Lenses (Louise Bertelsen and Po shu Wang). The spheres contain speakers which connect to a synthesizer and two keyboards -- one in the library and one in the recreation center. Words and phrases typed on the keyboards are converted into braille and then converted to music.

The other two proposals for the library entrance were:

A 1 and 1/4 times larger-than-life cast bronze and fabricated steel sculpture representing two figures in a canoe. The figures are cast bronze and the canoe is fabricated steel. The piece measures 25 feet long 42 inches tall and 40 inches wide, by David Phelps. (my favorite)