The Ames Public Art Commission is into cones.

That’s what John Cunnally, Public Art Commission member and ISU associate professor of art history, joked about the commission’s proposal to place a third cone-shaped sculpture outside City Hall.

The Ames City Council approved the recommendation at its meeting Tuesday.

The council had previously approved the $15,000 budget for a sculpture to be placed outside the entrance of the City Hall auditorium, on the north side of the building, said Nancy Polster, Public Art Commission chairwoman and former ISU faculty member.

At its March 7 meeting, the Public Art Commission voted unanimously to recommend “Crescendo” by Cedar Falls artist Marc Moulton.

The decision comes despite some concerns among commission members that the piece would draw criticism because its conical shape is too similar to that of the two cones which sit outside the east entrance of City Hall.

Retiring Public Art Commission member and polymer clay artist Patty Kimle said the piece looks like someone took one of the cones in front of City Hall and cleaned it and set it up.

Those two cones comprise the piece titled “Voices of the Prairie,” said Michele Farnham, Public Art Commission member and ISU Research Park Program Coordinator.

Farnham said there was a public outcry in response to the sculpture. However, Farnam said controversy “is not necessarily a bad thing.”

“The reason people don’t like `Voices of the Prairie’ is because they’re on the ground,” Cunnally said. “[Moulton’s piece] is in a completely different aesthetic ballpark.”

In a letter he sent to the commission, Moulton described his idea for an 11-foot tall brushed aluminum sculpture in the shape of “a large faceted cone, or note stem, set on a rounded base, or note head, and topped with an uplifting wing, the note flag.”

One thing that set the Moulton proposal apart from the others the commission considered was that it included the possibility of adding internal lighting, Williams said.

Lighting “is most integral to the design’s success,” Polster said, but the cost of the lighting exceeds the project’s budget.

Moulton will submit a grant application to the Iowa Arts Council requesting funding to pay for the lighting, Williams said.

Assuming all goes well, Polster said she anticipates the work will be completed and installed by late summer or early fall.

This is Moulton’s second piece of public art in Ames. He also created the sculpture suspended from the ceiling of the Communications Building.