New public artwork 'S/WING' planned near Muirfield Village Golf Club links bird flight and golf swing

Drivers on Muirfield Drive now pass a new landmark on the knoll between Whittingham Drive and Muirfield Drive. The City of Dublin dedicated S/WING there on Sept. 3, 2026, with the Dublin Arts Council and the artist, Ivan Toth DePeña, on hand.

What the city hasn't published is a single price tag for it. Depending on which public record you read, S/WING cost either $175,000 or $100,000 — and a third figure, a $75,000 annual local fund, sits in 2019 committee minutes without a clear connection to the others.

The city's announcement describes the piece this way: "S/WING captures the graceful power of movement, where the rhythm of a bird's wings meets the timeless form of the golf swing." DePeña, a Hispanic-American artist based in Charlotte, North Carolina, holds a master's degree in architecture from Harvard's Graduate School of Design and has made public artworks including Reflect in Miami, Air/Traffic/Control at Nashville International Airport, and Color Forest along Charlotte's Rail Trail. His sculpture draws on bird symbolism in Shawnee, Wyandot, and Irish-Celtic cultures, with themes of guidance, transition, and connection. It is aligned to the cardinal directions, and around the summer solstice the sunrise and sunset pass through its interior center, briefly turning the piece into a living sundial.

Where it stands

The site is visible from Muirfield Drive whether you are driving north or south, at the edge of the golf-course corridor in northwest Dublin — beside the club Jack Nicklaus founded, which has hosted the Memorial Tournament since 1976.

The parcel came to the city from the Muirfield Homeowners Association, which originated the grant and donated the land to satisfy the project's grant requirements. The celebration that followed the dedication was a $49-per-person reception at The Country Club at Muirfield Village — a ticketed toast with prosecco and hors d'oeuvres at the club next door. For everyone else in Dublin, it's a sculpture they'll pass on Muirfield Drive, paid for by a 6% tax on every overnight hotel stay in the city.

The money

The city and the Dublin Arts Council say S/WING's all-inclusive budget is $175,000, covering design, materials, fabrication, installation, transportation, insurance, engineering, and contingency. The arts council says that money came from a state appropriation under Substitute House Bill 687, signed by Gov. Mike DeWine in June 2022.

But the state's own enacted capital analysis lists a different figure: a $100,000 line item for the Dublin Arts Council's Muirfield Drive Project. And city committee minutes from 2019 show Dublin has been allocating $75,000 a year from the hotel/motel tax fund for an Art in Public Places commission — a separate local stream from the state money.

No published document reconciles the three figures.

On Nov. 4, 2024, Dublin City Council adopted Resolution 56-24 authorizing the City Manager to enter into a contract with DePeña for the design, construction, and installation of the Muirfield Art in Public Places project at the northeast parcel of Muirfield Drive and Whittingham Drive, planned for completion in early 2026.

What the city owes

The ribbon is cut, but the public accounting isn't. Before the city asks residents to celebrate S/WING as Dublin's newest landmark, it owes them a single document that shows what the sculpture cost, where every dollar came from, and whether the $75,000 annual hotel/motel tax allocation is still funding public art today.

The question to ask at the next council meeting is simple: whose Dublin does S/WING belong to — the Muirfield homeowners who donated the land and toasted it at the country club, or the whole city that's paying for it through every overnight hotel stay?