In just a few short weeks, a new public art piece will be installed in downtown Lacombe.

An Edmonton based sculptor is working on a large kinetic tree which will find a home at the south end of 49th street, the former one way, with it visible from the intersection of Highway 12 and 2A.

A member of the Lacombe Art Collection Committee was in Europe recently and experienced kinetic art, so Maureen MacKenzie with the City of Lacombe says they landed on the idea of a kinetic tree.

“We have wonderful trees, we’re known for our beautiful green spaces and also for the history downtown so we thought why don’t we get a kinetic tree done, something that’s not just static, it’s beautiful, it has some flow and some movement to it.  It’s actually going to be made out of metal with bark and canopy of leaves, there will be kind of flow within the canopy itself, but there will also be birds built into it that will have movement”.

The new art piece bears about a $20,000 price tag, MacKenzie explains how it will be funded.

“Of course we have a 1% for art policy in the City of Lacombe where 1% of applicable budgets on capital works are to be budgeted for public art.  Because we have all the work going on downtown, there was a percentage of money set aside for a special art project and then we also have a very small art collection budget and we added some extra funds to the 1% for art budget so that we have enough to actually commission something that looked good and was substantial in size”.

MacKenzie says everyday Lacombe attracts tourists to see our public art and murals and it’s becoming a good economic builder, she points to the attention the wizard sculpture in Popow Park which received over 35,000 hits on social media alone.

William Johnson is hard at work on the piece at Ravensfire Sculpture.