Keith Kaziak, sculpture instructor at Notre Dame, returns to his hometown of Wausau to install “Passage.” The Rotary Club commissioned the public artwork.
WAUSAU – After years of preparation, conception and implementation, northern Wisconsin’s newest public art piece is complete, nearly a decade after the event it commemorates.
The work is a bronze, granite and concrete sculpture created by Keith Kaziak, a Wausau native who now teaches foundry and sculpture at the University of Notre Dame. It is called “Passage” and was commissioned by the Rotary Club of Wausau to commemorate the club’s 100th anniversary.
Rosemary Barnes, longtime member and past president of the Wausau chapter, said the sculpture was part of several projects club members did to celebrate the chapter’s 100th anniversary. All of their ideas centered around the theme of water, and other projects included sponsoring a well-drilling project in Africa and an effort to dredge and clean a pond at Bluegill Bay Park in Rib Mountain.
The official anniversary was celebrated in 2015, Barnes said, but it took years for Kaziak’s work to be completed for a variety of reasons. It took time to select and refine Kaziak’s design. There were many discussions with the city of Wausau about the placement of the sculpture and the details of how the work would eventually be turned over to the city. And then there was the time it took to complete the work itself.
All of that combined with the fact that the piece will be a gift to the city means that “this sculpture embodies the Rotary motto of ‘Selfless Service,'” Barnes said. “We are so excited and happy to finally have it installed.”
From Kaziak’s perspective, everything worked out in the end, especially the location where the sculpture now stands, along the river near a plaza behind the main branch of the Marathon County Public Library.
“It definitely feels like it was meant to be here,” Kaziak said as he installed the piece on Thursday.
Kaziak graduated from Wausau East High School in 1998 and earned his bachelor’s degree from the University of Minnesota and his Master of Fine Arts from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. He exhibits throughout the Midwest and has won numerous awards, including the 2021 Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture award presented by the International Sculpture Center.
Kaziak’s work often veers toward the abstract. His award-winning work was titled “Tower of Boxes, 2021,” a 20-foot-tall sculpture made in part from the shipping boxes he received during lockdown during the pandemic.
“Passages” is a more representational piece created for a wider audience than his usual pieces, he said.
It depicts a wheel at the source of a river flowing down a base made of heavy chunks of red granite found specifically in Marathon County. The whole thing is a tribute to the Wisconsin River that flows through Wausau and how it once powered the industry that helped found the city. At the end of the river, there is a drain that the water flows through, indicating that when people use the water, it always ends up in places like the Wisconsin River.
Kaziak said his childhood in Wausau helped him design the first work to be installed here. “I associate this stone with this place,” he said.
Kaziak made about 35 bronze castings to create parts of the wheel and river that surround the piece. In total, they weighed about 400 pounds. The whole thing sits on the granite slabs and is supported by a concrete foundation.
“Having a piece in my hometown is great,” Kaziak said. “I wanted it to stand the test of time … and connect to our relationship with nature.”
Keith Uhlig is a regional reporter for USA TODAY NETWORK-Wisconsin based in Wausau. Reach him at 715-845-0651 or [email protected]. Follow him at @UhligK on X (formerly Twitter) and Instagram, or on Facebook.
