An artist has been chosen for a public art project in Guthrie Center.

Main Street Guthrie Center Director Julie Bailey says the selection committee has chosen Hilde DeBruyne from Cumming to create artwork for the community. As we previously reported, Main Street Guthrie Center is teaming up with the Scenic Byway Foundation as one of the community on the Western Skies Byway to feature artwork in their community. The artwork will be in a small, privately owned park on the corner of 3rd and State streets.

DeBruyne is a native of Belgium and she believes art work needs to fit the community in which it is in. She visited Guthrie Center a couple of times prior to applying to be the artist for the project.

The selection committee went through six applications before choosing DeBruyne. The committee members include Jim and Janice Vandevanter, Adair-Casey/Guthrie Center High School art teacher Kelly Nielson, Guthrie County Arts Council Secretary Pat Sleister, Greg and Heath Opseth with the MSGC Board Guthrie County Hospital, local realtor Nancy Smith and a retired business person Darwin Hughes.

The next step is holding a public meeting with DeBruyne so that MSGC can get public input in what they would like the artwork to include and highlight. The event will be on November 10th at 6pm at the Mary J. Barnett Library in Guthrie Center.

Bailey notes that they are close to securing the full $20,000 for the project through grants, but they won’t turn down donations either.

“We talked at our last meeting about starting a fund that would pay for maintenance and insurance and things like that. If we do get private donations, we could set aside to do something like that, but maybe we’ll want a second piece of public art someday.”

Once a final design is drawn up, the installation process will begin sometime next year.