By KAREN THIEL

For the Daily News

It is colorful, fantastical, mechanically sophisticated, wildly artistic, hypnotizing, never seems to move the same way twice — and it doesn’t have a name. Not yet.

That sculpture — often called “kinetic art” or a “whirligig” — is located in the front window of the Turnage Theatre on Main Street. Arts of the Pamlico Executive Director Debra Torrence said this week that you — yes, you — could become the person who names it. But there will be competition for that honor.

Torrence has announced that the “Give It A Whirl” raffle, beginning today, will be held for the naming rights. She said it’s simple: “make a donation to the (Turnage Theatre’s) Raise the Roof Campaign, and every $100 you invest between February 1 and June 30 adds a ticket, in your name, to the hat.”

The winner will not only get the opportunity to name the sculpture, but will also be credited for that name on a metal plaque to be installed on or near the sculpture in July.

Torrence said that just over a million dollars have already been raised for the project to replace the entire roof structure of the theatre, which was created in “the 1910 era” and needs much more repair than can be done on a piecemeal basis. She said another $300,000 is needed to meet projected costs for the project, which is slated to begin this summer.

“We’ve had people actually stop in their tracks and just stare at the piece,” she said, adding that one little girl tried to mimic the motion of the unique sculpture by twirling in front of it.

A mix of wildly colored, perpetually spinning metal and glass, it was gifted to Arts of the Pamlico “as an anonymous donation to add to our permanent collection and to raise funding for the roof,” Torrence said.

The sculpture is 68 inches high, 56 inches wide, and sits on a 12-by-12-inch metal base. It was created by Seattle-based artist Andrew Carson, whose fascination with moving things began with pre-teen efforts to create hand-built electronic measurement instruments to study the 100-mph “Chinook” wind patterns where he grew up. Early inspirations also included the “unusual functional windmills” that were actually experimental turbines at the Rockwell wind energy test site near his home.

All that science and mechanical knowledge, bolstered by engineering and fabrication skills he gained in school, became much more artistic in the mid 1990’s. That’s when Carson began creating elegant weathervanes and, eventually, the highly sought-after, hand-crafted pieces of scraps-turned-art that are now the prized and admired highlights of private and public collections all over the country and beyond.

The as-yet unnamed sculpture at Arts of the Pamlico/Turnage Theatre can be admired up close when the building’s gift shop is open — or enjoyed from the sidewalk any time, at its perc