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On February 4, 2001 the Messenger-Inquirer wrote...

"Owensboro sculptor Bill Kolok routinely works in an isolated setting until he has completed his art. The artist is changing his ways for his latest commissioned work. He will be setting up a studio in the city's newest park at Ninth and Frederica streets.

"I decided to make it interesting," said Kolok. "People can come by and watch me work, and they can call up my Web site and watch the transformation from a column of limestone to a piece of sculpture."

A collaboration between the city and the Owensboro Museum of Fine Art is allowing the Kentucky Wesleyan College professor to engage a wide range of people in the project.

The Mayor's Committee for Outdoor Sculpture commissioned the work. And the museum will develop the community education component through the art education department...

...Artist will teach as he creates

KWC is donating a seven-foot, Indiana limestone column for the project, said Kolok.

"This will be evolutionary," Kolok said. "The 5,000-pound column will become 2,500 pounds when the piece is finished."

The artist hopes people will learn and understand what sculpture is. He wants the public to hear the sounds and get a feel for what sculpting is like.

"They may think it comes effortlessly," said the sculptor. "When they watch me work they will see the power tools I use and the hard work as I negotiate with the stone, and in the process I hope to create an ownership that is part of the collective Owensboro experience."

The work has no title yet. Kolok says that will emerge as he works on it. He uses descriptive words akin to the Ohio River like flow and current to help visualize it.

"We're in a continuum of change, and this piece is about a sense of movement in which there are undercurrents and torrents," said Kolok.

"The stone will give and take -- there are no guarantees," Kolok said. "It's a dance between me, the stone and the community."