Art can have a powerful effect on people in the communities in which they live.

But what about the stories behind these works?

UK sculpture professor Gary Bibbs has created more than 30 public sculptures, and he attributes much of his success to the mentors who have helped nurture his creative journey.

Now, as you might imagine, Professor Bibbs is continuing this tradition of guiding future generations of artists.

Suspended above the atrium in the University of Kentucky's Gatton School of Business and Economics is one of Professor Gary Bibbs' most impressive works.

Among its hidden mysteries lies a legacy of mentorship, and Bibbs' career is a master class in the art of passing the gift forward.

I had no idea that I was ever gonna be a sculptor.

You have to keep in mind, sculptures introduced, no one wakes up and says they're gonna make a large outdoor sculpture.

That doesn't happen.

From an early age, Professor Bibbs showed an interest in art, but the Louisville native found resistance to the idea of pursuing that passion.

They don't understand the deep meaning behind you putting an idea into some kind of composition or painting or drawing.

Just the whole title as an artist is something very abstract to a lot of people.

Luckily, Professor Bibbs found a silver lining in the form of art teachers.

Bibbs says his teachers saw something in him that he didn't see in himself, and he credits them with nurturing his talent.

Those particular people collectively helped me connect the dots.

So, from junior high to high and then on to college, fortunately, I had a person in place to keep mentoring me.

As a professor for more than 30 years, Bibbs has had the opportunity to mentor hundreds of students, and his influence reaches far beyond the campus in Lexington.

There's a professor from America who's coming to visit, and he's actually a sculpture professor.

Gary comes to my studio, and that was it.

You know, and looking at my work, then giving me a critique of what I should build or how I should improve on it.

[music playing] Having his work critiqued by someone who would become his mentor is something Professor Bibbs can relate to.

When finishing his postdoctoral work, he reached out to the internationally acclaimed sculptor, Richard Hunt, for his final project review.

Under the Ford Postdoctoral Fellowship, which was for one year, it allowed me funding to get a studio and study at the Art Institute of Chicago, get housing, but after the years, I now needed a review of my artwork, and he agreed to do it.

So, he comes, he reviews it, he's at my studio, we're talking.

The next thing you know, he's like, "Do you need a job?"

[laughs] I said, "Of course.

You're not working for Richard Hunt."

With more than 160 public art commissions, Richard Hunt is an iconic figure in abstract sculpture.

Professor Bibbs worked as Hunt's assistant from 1986 to 1990 and helped fabricate and install eagle columns in Chicago's Jonquil Park.

The daily experience became the art.

A lot of artists sit down and draw out what their plans are, and then they say, "Okay, this is what this is gonna be," and then go ahead and pursue it.

Not Richard.

Okay, the piece starts this way, comes back this way, goes back this way.

You can never look at a Richard Hunt and see where a piece starts or finish.

Richard Hunt is, he's been the mentor of mentors, you know.

Everybody looks up to Richard Hunt, and for Gary Bibbs, especially to work under him.

You know, this is another blessing coming with it.

Everything that all my teachers and mentors put in me, I put that out in him.

He gets to work, you know.

There's no joke about working.

There's no joke about, you know, producing or creating.

It's work, you know.

So, we turned him loose in the shop, and it's just off the rails.

Matter of fact, after a month or two, he was not coming home at all.

That was a turning point in my career, you know, when I found Professor Gary.

He's my professor, and then he's also like my dad, at the same time my mentor.

He's guiding me.

I'm not just like a student.

I'm also an apprentice.

When Kiptoo left UK, he brought the lessons he learned from Professor Bibbs to his first love of wood carving.

And his art has come a long way from those early days in Kenya.

I came with one mallet that I really fashioned, and I wrote in Kenya from just a tree branch and a chisel that was from a nail, pounding the nail, pound the end of it.

And then, you know, on a stone, sharpen it, you're ready, good to go.

But then, here comes the chainsaw that, you know, most of the time, you know, it was for logging.

And now it is a tool that has transformed the art world completely right now.

While Kiptoo's work is very different from Professor Bibbs, he carries on the spirit of creation he learned from his mentor.

After all, the artist's job is to explore, pushing ideas into new places and discovering new possibilities.

There's this whole spectrum now that I'm now opened up into that, you know, it's really so many possibilities that I've always been wanting to do, to venture into, you know.

Well, you know, I could tell people I feel like I'm just starting, you know, 64 years old.

And I think I'm now just getting it.