Oakland -- The Port of Oakland is set to award more than $600,000 to three city artists chosen to decorate Oakland International Airport with two sculptures and a 160-foot-long glass window display.

Artists Alan Rath, Joyce Hsu and Hung Liu will receive the grants as part of the port's $1.65 million public art program at the airport. The three were chosen after an almost yearlong selection process that attracted more than 322 submissions from artists across the Bay Area.

"It seemed like forever, but I'm thrilled," said Commissioner Darlene Ayers-Johnson, who spearheaded both the program and selection process. "This art will enrich everyone's lives."

The artwork will be created and placed at the airport as construction on a Terminal 2 expansion and parking garage are completed during the next few years. The art will include a sculpture for an outdoor plaza, a glass window display for a

terminal walkway and a moving sculpture just inside the airport's security checkpoint.

While the port made no requirements on what the art should entail, all three winners incorporated flight as part of their work. They focused on creating a feeling of joy and wonder after flight, something many said has been lost since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks made flying more nerve-wracking.

"It was interesting all of the artists were intrigued by the notion of flight," said Cherie Newell, director of professional services at the Oakland Museum of California. "All the artists really wanted to recreate the wonder of flight."

The largest grant, $300,000, will go to Hsu, who will construct a steal sculpture of a "whimsical" propeller plane. It will be placed in an outdoor plaza in front of a proposed parking garage. Hsu beat out 56 others who vied for the grant with a design Ayers-Johnson said "was so captivating."

Hsu's abstract plane will be about 14 feet long and at least 16 feet wide.

Liu, an established Oakland artist, won a $240,000 grant for her idea to use satellite images on a window in a future corridor leading to airline gates.

Liu proposed using four separate images. The first one would be a close-up picture of the Bay Area followed by one of the California coast, the Northwestern Pacific Coast and then the Pacific Ocean.

Liu's idea is for passengers walking toward airplane gates to get the feeling they are taking off as the images are seen from the close-up of the Bay Area to the larger Pacific Ocean.

Liu won the grant after competing against 160 other artists.

Finally, Roth won $100,000 for his idea to place mechanical sculptures of what will appear to be birds near where Terminal 2's new security check point will be located.

The exhibit will have three "birds" that will look like they are flying.

"I was trying to get back to the beauty of flight," Roth said. "I think that has been lost."

The artists were chosen through a multistaged process run by the Oakland Museum of California, which was hired by the port as a consultant.

Geoff Dorn, the port's public art coordinator, said the hardest part was trimming the original 322 submissions to 15 and then to three.

"It was like walking into a jewelry store -- everything was perfect," he said.