16The Wave You Can't Unknot
“Spadix” by Mike Cunningham (b. 1942), 1993, cast 2001 · bronze on a limestone base · acquired for the Greater Waco Chamber collection in 2008, per Creative Waco’s public art mapSCULPTURE
A bronze ribbon tied in a knot nobody can untie, on a column, minding its own business.
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 — and one more date from Creative Waco's public art map: the Chamber acquired it for its permanent collection in 2008.
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.
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