17The Wave You Can't Unknot

On the lawn by the Chamber of Commerce, a heavy green-patinaed bronze does an impossible thing very quietly: it curls like a wave, loops through itself, opens a perfect round window in its own middle, and never lands. The city's public art map lists it as Spadix — the word for the curling flower spike inside a calla lily. For a year the little interpretive sign beside it was too glared to read, and this page said so and asked for help. Well: we caught it on a clear August evening, and here is the final word. Spadix, 1993, cast in 2001 — Mike Cunningham, born 1942, a native Wacoan who works in bronze casts, carved wood and stone, acquired for the Chamber Collection. Case closed, with thanks to a low sun.

Walk around it once. It's a wave from the north side, a ribbon from the east, and a question mark from wherever you end up standing. Public art doesn't have to explain itself. It just has to make you circle it.