TRAVERSE CITY -- It's a large, immobile object that remains more than 200 miles from Traverse City, yet it managed to spark months of debate around the region.
It's the "Time Myth," a white, steel-beam sculpture that was headed for Traverse City's bayfront Open Space until public outcry thwarted that plan.
"People have passed millages, have knocked down buildings, and said, 'We want an open space,'" Mayor Michael Estes said. "I did not see how the public would support that or any other piece of art that would have that much impact on the Open Space. We want to see the water."
The much-debated sculpture could still find a home in Northern Michigan. Officials with the Interlochen Center for the Arts expressed interest in the piece after it became clear it wouldn't work in Traverse City. Members of the Downtown Traverse City Association's public art committee began working in late 2007 to bring the sculpture to the Open Space.
Many area residents rebuked that idea, and city commissioners in February urged against placing the sculpture at the bayfront park's focal point.
Some commissioners said there should have been more opportunities for public input earlier in the process.
DTCA public art committee members spent the next few months looking for alternative downtown locations, but they ran into potential engineering concerns and expected difficulties raising money to transport and install the piece.
"It's a loss for Traverse City," said Gene Jenneman, director of Dennos Museum Center at Northwestern Michigan College. "It was a great opportunity."
Jenneman led efforts to receive the piece as a donation and place it downtown.
"We went through the process in the way that is prescribed for doing that, and public input was an opportunity that came with every one of those meetings that took place ..." he said.
Despite his disappointment, Jenneman said he's excited the piece could end up at the Interlochen Center for the Arts. Interlochen officials have been in negotiations since summer to bring the piece to campus, but the sculpture remains trapped in a courtyard within Kmart's former headquarters in Troy. Building demolition has been delayed several times due to the poor economy.
Interlochen President Jeffrey Kimpton hopes to eventually place "Time Myth" in a park area south of the school's new center for visual arts.
"It's a world-class piece of sculpture," Kimpton said. "It's a sundial, and so it kind of marks the progression of time and its many different angles demonstrate the creativity with which it was created. I think its unusual design belongs in a school of arts and creativity."
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