The N.C. Arts Council has announced its grant awards for 2011 and Sampson County’s public art endeavor is on the list, set to receive $25,000 from the state.

The project, called “Milling Around,” by artist Heidi Lippman, has been the source of discussion over the last year and will feature a 25-foot long, 6.5-foot tall glass painted, silk screen, curved wall erected in the heart of Phase III of the city of Clinton’s Downtown Revitalization Project.

The wall will be three-fourths of an inch thick, hurricane strength, and the glasswork would contain opaque, translucent and transparent areas. The work would play with different light and change with the time of day and the seasons. As light hits the wall, colored shadows are cast, also making for an ever-changing piece of art on the sidewalk and the walls nearby.

Lippman said the wall is meant to be the central dramatic element, a beacon and gathering place at the west end of the park area.

City manager John Connet said, with the $25,000 grant in place, there is another $44,000 in private donations also anticipated to go toward the project. While the initial price tag for the public art endeavor was set around $50,000, a tentative project budget presented earlier this year showed a figure at $181,000. That figure has since come down to $139,000.

Connet attributed the cost decrease in part to removing the $11,000 it was going to take to install light boxes to illuminate the piece at night. The overall size of the project was also scaled down from a 30 foot by 7 foot glass piece, contributing to lower construction and installation costs, and a lower artist fee.

With a grant in hand, and another $44,000 in private funds pledged, that leaves $70,000 needed to bring the project together. Connet said the city mailed an application Tuesday to the National Endowment for the Arts informing them of the project and requesting a grant for the remaining funds.

The possibility of having artistic elements in the ongoing downtown revitalization has been kicked around since 2008, and became much closer to a reality with the formation of a local public art committee last year.

Art committee members and city officials decided that a focal art piece would be located at the top of the College Street parking lot, with architectural and landscape elements trickling down to the Cattail Branch and the old jail site on Vance Street. Connet said the public art piece will fit in nicely with the ongoing downtown revitalization, but will likely come after the third phase of revitalization is completed.

“This will be something that will be at the end of the downtown revitalization project,” the city manager stated.

The third phase of the downtown revitalization includes moving utilities underground, constructing new sidewalks, resurfacing streets, and building an enclosure for dumpsters on Connesstee Street and a retaining wall to eliminate erosion at the old jail site on Vance Street. The improvements would also include removing the broken concrete wall that lines College Street and replacing it with a brick wall.

Connet said the city intended to bid the estimated $1.4 million project in June and July, but receiving a $450,000 USDA grant resulted in some additional paperwork and a slight delay. Connet said he is optimistic that the city will begin accepting bids for the third phase at the end of August.

The edge of a configured and more pedestrian-friendly College Street parking lot would ultimately serve as the site of the “Milling Around” piece. Lippman drew on her discussions with local residents for the millstone theme, and saw a community bond.

Finding a large interest in a mill abandoned along Cattail Creek, the millstone was later donated to the project and will be included as a centerpiece element near the glass wall. The millstone motif is “timeless” and allows for multiple interpretations, Lippman said.

“It is a great metaphor for how a community is shaped, from stone,” she said.

Connet said it will be a welcome addition to the improvements made — and still under way — in the city’s downtown.

“I think it just puts another piece of funding for the public art piece (in place) that will definitely enhance our downtown,” the city manager said.

Chris Berendt can be reached at 910-592-8137, ext. 121, or by email at sicrime@heartlandpublications.com.