2026 marks 150 years of the American Dream City. Yard signs across the city, a dedicated website and even a podcast mark the occasion.
But in the coming months, a permanent fixture created by one of Arlington’s own will commemorate the celebration. A new art installation featuring a column of stacked cylindrical pieces of glass surrounded by a large sundial will be placed in the heart of Arlington’s downtown by the end of the year.
The piece’s creator, University of Texas at Arlington professor and artist Justin Ginsberg, said he’s glad he can give back to the city that has done so much for him.
“It’s been a pretty great home for me, so to be able to honor the city’s legacy is really special,” Ginsberg said.
The statue is called “Touched by Time.”
The column of glass represents civic representation, Ginsberg said. The sundial represents the relationship between time, government and civic responsibilities.
“I started thinking of ways in which to create something that could be representative of the city and representative of this historic moment in the history of Arlington, but also where people can interact with it in some way,” Ginsberg said.
Originally from Dallas, Ginsberg got his start in glass art when he was an American studies and history student at the University of Texas at Austin.
“I was just doing it on the side, and then I just got hooked,” Ginsberg said.
Eventually, an apprenticeship with a traveling artist brought him to UT-Arlington, where he stayed for his master’s degree in studio art.
Fifteen years, countless pieces completed and art showings both abroad and internationally later, he is the head of UT-Arlington’s bachelor of fine arts and master of fine arts programs concentrating on glass.
Ginsberg said he’s happy to work in any type of art, but glass has always drawn his attention.
“It’s just so versatile,” Ginsberg said. “It’s like a magical material; it can do so many things.”
Artist Justin Ginsberg poses near one of his pieces of art in his studio in Arlington on May 21, 2026. (Chris Moss | Arlington Report)
A few months ago, members of the city’s communication office reached out to Ginsberg about a new project: commemorating Arlington’s 150th anniversary.
Jay Warren, the director of communication and legislative affairs, said the communication office’s initial planning for the anniversary began last summer, on a smaller scale.
The plans grew as nonprofit organizations began exploring how they could program around the anniversary, and the community got more excited about it, he said.
“We could sense that, OK, there’s some energy here,” Warren said.
The office approached the Arlington Tomorrow Foundation, the city’s charitable arm, to fund some of the larger parts of the celebration, including the statue, Warren said.
A rendering shows what “Touched by Time” may look like in downtown Arlington. (Courtesy | City of Arlington)
Making the piece come to life isn’t easy.
The initial discussions began at the beginning of the year, Ginsberg said, and revolved around what would be logistically possible for the statue.
A large part of the conversation was the placement, he said.
Originally, the piece was planned for inside City Hall. As discussions progressed, the groups wanted to see how having a glass piece outside would work.
When installed, “Touched by Time” will be in Founders Park, in front of the Levitt Pavilion.
Ginsberg is using a special type of material called low-iron clear architectural glass that can withstand severe weather like heat and hail. He’s worked with this type of glass during a residency with a specialty glass company.
Warren said the piece will have 150 glass plates stacked on top of each other in the middle of the sundial. The sundial will have engravings marking some of the most important moments from the city’s 150-year history.
The sundial itself will take collaboration from multiple sectors, Ginsberg said. Engineers, concrete specialists and fabrication companies will all be involved to make the final pieces fit together and come to life.
“It takes a lot of hands, a lot of bodies and a lot of specialists,” he said.
The piece should be finished and installed by late November or early December, Ginsberg said. He hopes it will be up for the winter solstice on Dec. 21.
“I would love it to be up for the winter solstice, because one of the features, we’re still verifying our mathematics, is that the tip of the shadow will actually touch the column on the winter solstice,” Ginsberg said.
The largest point of pride for the project, Warren said, is that the piece is being created by an artist from UTA.
“What I think brings it home for me is that this piece that’s being commissioned specifically for the anniversary, it’s from an artist that is working in Arlington, that is ingrained so heavily into the University of Texas at Arlington, that is helping educate students there,” Warren said.
Due to the statue’s size and weight, it will stay at that location for many years to come, Ginsberg said.
Ginsberg has called Arlington home since 2007. Having a hand in creating something that will be in the city’s history and future is really special, he said.
“I think it’ll be surreal for a while,” Ginsberg said. “I never would have guessed as a younger person that I would call Arlington home — and such an impactful home to me.”
Chris Moss is a reporter for the Arlington Report. Contact him at chris.moss@arlingtonreport.org.
At the Arlington Report, news decisions are made independently of our board members and financial supporters. Read more about our editorial independence policy here.
This <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/28/uta-professor-designs-downtown-glass-art-piece-commemorating-arlingtons-150th/”>article</a> first appeared on <a target=”_blank” href=”https://fortworthreport.org”>Arlington Report</a> and is republished here under a <a target=”_blank” href=”https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nd/4.0/”>Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License</a>.<img src=”https://i0.wp.com/fortworthreport.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/cropped-favicon.png?resize=150%2C150&ssl=1″ style=”width:1em;height:1em;margin-left:10px;”>
<img id=”republication-tracker-tool-source” src=”https://fortworthreport.org/?republication-pixel=true&post=577487&ga4=2820184429″ style=”width:1px;height:1px;”><script> PARSELY = { autotrack: false, onload: function() { PARSELY.beacon.trackPageView({ url: “https://fortworthreport.org/2026/05/28/uta-professor-designs-downtown-glass-art-piece-commemorating-arlingtons-150th/”, urlref: window.location.href }); } } </script> <script id=”parsely-cfg” src=”//cdn.parsely.com/keys/fortworthreport.org/p.js”></script>