UT will hold a dedication ceremony to honor its newest sculpture Friday, Sept. 11. The event will begin at 10:15 a.m. on the Johnson-Ward Pedestrian Mall, close to the Clarence Brown Theatre.

Both the artist, Alice Aycock, and the donor, UT alumnus Wilton D. "Chick" Hill, will speak during the ceremony. UT Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs Susan Martin will also address the crowd.

Aycock's figure, titled "A Startling Whirlwind of Opportunity", stands 25 feet high and features a spiraling design of aluminum and lighting. The UT Public Art Selection Committee, composed of students, faculty, administrators and local artists, chose her proposed design from a pool of 220 applicants. 

Aycock wanted her sculpture's imaginative design to add a different point of view to the monotony of engraved stones and carved circles. She thought something was missing from the center of the Pedestrian Mall.

"You expect something to be in the center," Aycock said in an interview with The Daily Beacon's Robby O'Daniel. "The fact that there was nothing there felt kind of weird." It's always this kind of whirlwind sort of experience. Alice Aycock, artist and sculptor

The artist intended for the sculpture to represent the ideas that flow through the minds of the students who pass by it every day. 

"You get very excited because one idea leads to the next," Aycock noted. "It's always this kind of whirlwind sort of experience."

Aycock's art has been shown in notable galleries and museums in North and South America, Japan and Europe. Her work can be found in prominent collections, including the Museum of Modern Art, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Brooklyn Museum and the Whitney Museum of American Art.  She has other sculptures on display in major U.S. cities like New York City, Philadelphia, San Francisco and Nashville.

Hill's donation funded Aycock's commissioning efforts, as well as the installation of the sculpture. The UT School of Art helped to facilitate the procedure, which lasted five years.

Hill earned an engineering degree from UT in 1973. He grew to love art and wanted to share it with the UT community. Hill is the owner of the Davidson Hotel Co. and currently resides in Memphis.

Mayor Bill Haslam designated the week of Sept. 7 as Public Art Week in Knoxville. Several other events will be held this week, all leading up to the dedication ceremony Friday. More information on this week's festivities can be found on the School of Art's Web site.

Editor's Note: The story has been corrected to show that Aycock's quotes were from an interview with The Daily Beacon's Robby O'Daniel.