It was a quiet, blue-sky morning on Academy Street last Friday … until the crane cranked up outside Town Hall, and the art started flying.

“Public art starts conversations,” said Jim Davis, board member for Cary Visual Art. “It evokes emotions. And, it’s a lot of fun.”

See photo gallery here.

This year marks the seventh consecutive year that Cary Visual Art has organized the public art installations known as the Outdoor Sculpture Exhibition, with the support of the Town of Cary.

The first work to be placed was Two Witnesses, by Ohio artist Shawn Morin, a professor and head of the Scupture Program at Bowling Green State University.

At 500 pounds and more than 10 feet tall, the steel, bronze and granite piece had to be moved from a pickup truck-trailer onto its concrete display slab.   

Morin hand-signaled the crane operator and with the help of Public Works crewmen endured a few tense moments as the art was slowly hoisted up and over bystanders and trees.

"Much of my work incorporates metaphor and/or double meanings,” Morin said of Two Witnesses, which was inspired by relationships. “This is one of those pieces where the viewer gets to interpret or contribute to its meaning."

Morin and Davis carefully placed the piece, with Davis holding the ladder as Morin secured its bronze toppers, then bolted the main form to the slab.  

Two Witnesses — and the 11 other artworks placed along Academy Street — were selected from among applications submitted by artists across the nation.

The public art exhibition will be in place through July 12, 2015.

Juror for this year’s exhibition was Renee Piechocki, an artist, public art consultant and founding director of Pittsburgh’s Office of Public Art.

Piechocki said narrowing the submissions to 20 was easy, but the job got harder from there as she worked to create a balanced show from photos of submitted works, minus the names of the artists.

“I was looking for excellence in craftsmanship, and innovation in materials,” she said.

Cary Visual Art hosted an Opening Night reception on Friday at the Cary Arts Center, honoring these nationally-recognized sculptors whose works now grace Academy Street.

This year’s exhibition features a cell phone audio tour, described by the exhibiting artists, and exhibition brochures are available at the Cary Arts Center, Page-Walker Arts & History Center, and throughout Cary until June 2015.

For more information, visit caryvisualart.org.