DAPHNE, Ala.—When Eastern Shore residents drive down Main Street near the Daphne Public Library at night, a new sculpture will appear next to the road with bright green illuminations.

This color might help show the road or it may offer a guiding light to the library’s location.

The sculpture — an abstract piece that artist DeeDee Morrison said represents reading to her — cost the city around $300 plus labor fees to install, Public Works Director Richard Johnson said. The artist’s budget to build the sculpture was set at $100,000. The sculpture weighs 1,700 pounds and the concrete base supporting it weighs around 3,400 pounds. It’s 12 feet high and 7 feet wide. It’s painted steel with Plexiglas.

Morrison, of Birmingham, Ala., created the piece of art and Daphne’s Public Works Department installed it on the library lawn.

Morrison, library officials and Mayor Fred Small held a dedication ceremony for the sculpture Tuesday, titling it “Luminosity.”

“It’s an abstract object,” DeeDee said. “When you open a book, it leads you. So, the reader has to open the book to engage in that universe. It should illuminate you in some manner. At night, the lantern (inside the sculpture) leads you when it lights up.”

“Art has value because it affords potential to provoke emotion, soulful thought, glimpses of beauty and realization of those things larger than ourselves,” the artist stated. “Interaction with sculpture is a tactile experience that allows one the potential to explore intellectually and emotionally, to engage, to enjoy.

“I seek in my work to represent the constant change of not only metal and stone, but also the change of people, nature and indeed life itself.”

The sculpture was installed the week before September’s Jubilee Festival, Johnson said, allowing it to light up as people left the annual event.

Anne Morrison, DeeDee’s mother, was in attendance at the dedication.

“We drive by at night just to look at it,” the artist’s mother, from Fairhope, said. “Right after they got it installed and illuminated, we drove by to look at it.”

“It’s beautiful to look at when it’s night time,” said Jim Jenkins of Fairhope.

“It’s one of the nicest additions,” Small said. “I think this is really unique. We’re so very appreciative of this.”

“‘Luminosity,’ I think, particularly speaks to light up at night. You can see it. It’s very tactile,” DeeDee said. “This piece of art is sort of my turning point.”

 DeeDee has completed several large sculptures in Birmingham and Charlottesville, Va. She’s had exhibits in Key West, Fla.; Washington, D.C.; and New Orleans. She studied at The University of the South in Sewanee, Tenn., The University of Valencia in Spain, the London Design Extended Study Program, The University of Osaka in Japan and the Bessemer State Technical College Welding Program in Bessemer, Ala.

Library Director Tonja Young and Library board chair Jan Blankenhorn were also in attendance for the dedication.

DeeDee has an upcoming sculpture to be built for the Orange Beach Arts Center in March 2011. It will be titled “Lighthouse.”