Waco sculpture by Bob “Daddy-O” Wade could be moved

Wade’s sculpture, made from metal transformers, ventilation pipes and shell casings for the 1968 HemisFair in San Antonio, stood – or perhaps sat, lounged or lay slumped – for nearly 50 years on the former site of the Art Center Waco, part of the campus of McLennan Community College.

The “Family” was the first public art installation by the Texas artist, who was then an art teacher at MCC and later made a national career with whimsical, oversized art that included giant iguanas, two-story cowboy boots and dancing frogs playing instruments. The Austin-based artist died in 2020.

“Funny Farm Family,” along with Robert Wilson’s massive “The Waco Door” and two other smaller sculptures, remained at the Art Center’s former site when the Art Center Waco moved to its current downtown location at 701 S. Eighth St. three years ago.

The center succeeded in moving six more works from its sculpture garden to the downtown site, but the others were still under discussion due to the complexity and potential cost of moving them.

For more than 40 years, the Art Center Waco was housed in the former Cameron House, the summer home of the William Waldo Cameron family, on the MCC campus. Due to structural problems in the 96-year-old house, the center was forced to vacate the MCC-owned building in 2017 and find new premises.

University officials had originally hoped to repair and renovate the building for use by the MCC Foundation, but when project costs proved too high, the university decided to demolish the three-story building and construct a new, one-story Cameron Hall building on its site for $7.6 million.

The opening of the new hall is planned for March, with landscaping scheduled for early 2025. This means that the fate of the “Funny Farm Family” is uncertain.

MCC President Johnette McKown and several of her administrators will meet with Art Center Waco Executive Director Meghan Bias, Board Chair Morgan Eyring and others to discuss the next step for the stranded sculptures.

While MCC officials are in favor of keeping the 22-foot-high, minimalist “door” in place, the “Funny Farm Family” painted metal assemblage is a different story.

“I don’t think it fits aesthetically with Cameron Hall,” McKown said diplomatically.

She said it is important to maintain the long-standing relationship between the community college and the Waco arts organization, and this week’s discussion will explore possible solutions for the remaining sculptures.

“We just need to talk about it,” McKown said. “We’ve talked about it before, but the Art Center doesn’t have the same board it had back then.”

Board chairman Eyring said the center intends to move its sculptures to the downtown location, although the costs and logistics involved could be challenging.

Funny Farm Family and The Waco Door, both heavy metal works, will require concrete foundations, and because of The Waco Door’s height and six-ton ​​weight, anchor piers buried 10 feet deep in the ground may be necessary, Eyring said.

Funny Farm Family would also need to be refurbished, which would include removing rust and a more durable powder coating to restore the colour.

She declined to estimate how much the work for Funny Farm Family would cost, but said it would probably be in the tens of thousands of dollars.

When one of the two pieces is moved, another stranded sculpture is also transported: Gay Dreyer’s stone torso “Madonna”, but not Tony Wright’s metal assemblage “Buridan’s Ass” from 1992.

“It’s falling apart and it’s not safe to move to the arts center,” Eyring said.

Fearing that the cost and effort of moving Funny Farm Family might cause center officials to abandon the project, fans of Wade and the play’s historical value have assembled an ad hoc committee to examine the costs and outside funding options.

Waco artist and current Art Center board member Bryant Stanton alerted several Waco arts supporters earlier this summer that Funny Farm Family needed to be saved while there was still time to raise money and plan its future location.

In addition to being a major Texas artist of the 20th and 21st centuries, a contemporary and friend of other famous Texans such as Kinky Friedman and Willie Nelson, Wade was also connected to the history of the Art Center, Stanton said.

“I don’t like this piece personally, but I like the story behind it,” he said.

Former Art Center Waco Board President Jill Michaels is leading the ad hoc committee. She finds “Funny Farm Family” a representative piece of late 1960s pop art that Wade himself donated to the Art Center and returned in 2018 to be repainted and moved to its current location on the Art Center grounds.

“I loved the artist. He was a cool guy. This work deserves to be honored and preserved,” Michaels said. “Anyone who gets an obituary in the New York Times and doesn’t have to pay for it is something.”

Eyring said she appreciated the ad hoc committee’s willingness to step in and do critical work to move Funny Farm Family forward.

“This is a good opportunity to take this task off the board’s table,” she said.

Michaels noted that Lisa Wade, Bob Wade’s widow, supports the project and is optimistic that the “family” will find a new home.

“I think it will get done,” she said.