Artist's works as big and unique as Texas

A two-headed longhorn. A pair of 40-foot-tall cowboy boots. A panel van riddled with shotgun holes. An entire beer joint re-created in an art gallery.The Texana-themed art of Bob "Daddy-O" Wade is neither an exaggeration of the Lone Star State's reputation nor a view askew of the state's sizable sense of self-worth.Texas really is that big, it really is unique, and Wade — who understands that better than any singer, songwriter or filmmaker in recent history — is as big and iconic as the state he chronicles."It's always weird, twisted, funky stuff," says the 69-year-old artist, Austin-based for the past 16 years. "Some people see (my art) and think it's over the top, but it's not. I tell them that Texas is really like this."

His latest public installation, for example, pays tribute to one of the more obscure cul-de-sacs of the Texas pop-culture map: Leslie's Fried Chicken. Generations of drivers on Interstate 35, for example, gauged their progress by their proximity to Leslie's Waco location near the interstate.Austin's Laguna Gloria recruited Wade and eight other artists or collectives to build "Zip-A-Tee-Doo-Dah," a miniature golf-course on the tree-shaded grounds of the Austin art organization. Though some played fast and loose with the concept — including messages about commercialism and impossible-to-beat loops — Wade revisited his past.

He taught community-college art in Waco. And his first exhibit at Laguna Gloria, 1975's "Texas Formal Garden," features live chickens.Wade's contribution is a two-tiered hole in which putters send the ball between the legs of a menacing, 8-foot-tall ceramic rooster.FDA asks firms to limit antibiotics in animal feed. The ball rolls down several feet of PVC-pipe alley and empties onto the ground floor, where a 6-foot statue of Leslie's famous blue-and-white chicken awaits. Live chickens, in a specially built henhouse off to the side, complete the effect.