Visionaries live on as the Eight Great Statues.

With deliberate yet delicate strokes, "Kirk" Ke Wang's small hands brought eight of the world's greatest visionaries to life through sculpture. With his thoughts, he brought to life the creative imaginations of the hundreds of budding artists whose lives he touched while guiding an ambitious art project at Plant High School in Tampa, Florida.

Where once there were bare walls, da Vinci, Shakespeare, Galileo, Beethoven, Martin Luther King, Jr., Einstein, Edison and Susan B. Anthony proudly stand on pilasters lining the school auditorium. The four-foot statues are affectionately called, "The Eight Great."

Cultures Exchanging Ideas

In their wake, the statues unknowingly left legacies at Plant High School about hands-on art education, about cultures exchanging ideas, about high school students learning by doing, not memorizing only, and about a school community caring enough to remove financial obstacles in order for the sculptures to take form.

Wang was hired to sculpt the eight historical figures through the Artists-in-the-Schools program, which is sponsored by the Hillsborough County School Board and the Arts Council.

You Can't Rush Art

Wang embraced the project with enthusiasm and art students found him a fascinating learning source.

"He sees things in a totally different way. The little details never get by him," described student Ilya Goldberg.

"He would tell us about schools over there. About how the students are different and how difficult it is," said student Tom Shorrock.

"I learned you can't rush art," student Peter Curry reflected. "Art takes time."

"Mr. Wang made me want to be an artist when I get older. He brought out the artist in me," said a student, who worked with the artist on the statues for two years.

Starting the Sculpting Process

Working in cramped quarters in a former stained glass studio behind the school gymnasium, Wang and art teacher Hillary Jameson rallied students around "The Eight Great" project for seemingly endless hours--during and after school.

For thirteen months, the bond between Wang and the students strengthened as the artist and the art teacher invested hundreds of volunteer hours making molds and resin castings for the first two statues.

Four students spent the summer break in independent study with Wang tackling one of his most inspired statues--Martin Luther King, Jr. The civil rights leader, striking a pose with one arm raised in greeting to a throng of admirers, held special meaning to Wang because of the Red Square massacre in his homeland that same summer. Wang confided his feelings to his students, knowing his fellow countrymen were struggling for their freedom. When the Chinese students' statue of liberty was destroyed that summer, the artist told his students, "The statue of Martin Luther King, Jr. is my statue of liberty."

The Stages of Statue Production

Wang told his students that King represented someone who stood for what he believed in the same way his countrymen pleaded for their civil rights.

While the tedious process continued of making rubber molds from the sculpted clay and lining the molds with a lightweight casting material that had to be delicately removed and sanded, Jameson remained the project cheerleader and teacher. She gently guided dozens of her students through stages of the statue production, encouraging them to touch, feel and experience the art, and the historical heroes they were recreating.

Figurative Clay Sculpting

"I introduced figurative clay sculpting to my students through the statue project. This curriculum enhancement brought to life the sculpting process in my three-dimensional art classes," said Jameson.

Nearly 200 Plant High School art students directly benefited from the Artists-in-the-Schools statue project.

"Because of this Artists-in-the-Schools project, students have given more thought to role models, idols and heroes because the statues made them think about doing something great some day ... making contributions to society and achieving goals all people could share," said Jameson.

"The creative process is what Artists-in-the-Schools is all about."