A sculpture by an art professor from Michigan earned approval of Wylie Public Arts Advisory Board last week, which selected it as the finalist to be presented to the City Council for installation at Wylie Animal Shelter.

The arts board met Thursday, May 31, to selected a piece of new municipal art from submissions of concepts from three artists who had been winnowed down from a larger field.

Making the presentations were Robert Barnum, art professor at Ferris State University in Big Rapids, Mich., James Burns of Santa Fe, N.M., and Don Kennell, also of Santa Fe.

Selected as the best of the group was “Rescued” by Barnum, a piece featuring three human figures in aircraft-grade aluminum and corten steel rising to a height of 21 feet, six inches.

Site for the artwork is in front of the animal shelter on Hensley Lane. The sculpture is budgeted at $35,000.

One of the figures, measuring 12 feet tall, is a young girl holding a dog. The girl is rendered in aluminum and the dog is corten steel, a process that weathers to a rust hue. The other two figures, on a 5-foot-tall pedestal and soaring more than 21 feet, are of two shelter workers in aluminum and animals in corten steel.

Joe Reavis • [email protected]

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