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Charlotte Douglas International Airport officials said they will soon install the county’s biggest public arts project, a 60-foot-tall, 25-foot-wide sculpture by Portland artist Ed Carpenter.
The project is expected to cost about $400,000, paid with airport revenues, aviation director Jerry Orr said at Thursday’s Airport Advisory Committee meeting.
It will be installed near the intersection of Billy Graham Parkway and the airport approach road, and officials hope to have it ready for the Democratic National Convention in September.
Advisory committee members were shown a rendering of the statue, which will be made from steel and glass and will incorporate lighted elements. Carpenter is set to visit Charlotte again soon to help supervise the installation of the piece, and the sculpture will be named and dedicated in about a month.
The project is being funded under rules that require 1 percent of capita-improvement expenditures to go into a city-county fund for public art, officials said. However, since airport revenue is not taxpayer money, the airport’s contributions to the fund are spent on airport-related projects, such as this sculpture.
