Preacher expresses faith, hope through sculptures
The two worlds of ministry and artistry collide as the Rev. Rocky Hails uses his hands and a few special tools to sculpt an individual or scene out of clay.
A family emerging out of a storm shelter after a tornado has ripped through the neighborhood.
A little girl coming home to find her packed suitcase sitting outside her foster family’s house.
Moses treasuring the stone tablets inscribed with the Ten Commandments.
Hails, 61, said he imagined these moments and tried to capture them in the sculptures he creates in the dining room of his Warr Acres home.
The minister said the sculptures help him do what he feels divinely called to: minister the hope and love of Christ.
As ministries pastor at Heritage Baptist Church, a Southern Baptist church, 14317 N Council, Hails is always looking for ways to share his faith and he said he’s able to do that in much of his artwork.
“I think Jesus Christ is the hope so I desire to encourage other people with that,” he said. “Whether I’m teaching at Heritage or working in clay, the desire is to see Him exalted. I’m just the vessel.”
While showing off several of his pieces at his home, Hails said his sculpting didn’t take off until 2012 when his daughter gave him a half-day sculpting class with well-known artist Bob Willis as a birthday present.
He said he has a bachelor’s degree in graphic design and worked as a graphic designer for a physicians magazine, a state university and, for about a year, his own advertising agency.
An ordained Southern Baptist preacher, Hails eventually began working in ministry at Heritage Baptist.
He said he always painted and he allowed his faith, as well as his love of nature and Western themes, to flow into his drawings and paintings. The talent for sculpting, encouraged by his family and Willis, felt like a worthy adventure so he pursued it.
“It’s really been great for me. It’s an expression artistically of how God wired me,” he said.
Hails said the cost of getting a clay art piece cast in bronze is relatively expensive, but he came up with the funds to get two of his first pieces sent to a foundry in Pawhuska. He experienced a setback when just one week later, the foundry burned to the ground with his sculptures inside.
The preacher said he persevered and created a sculpture inspired by a story shared by an employee of a Christian faith-based adoption and foster care agency. According to the agency worker’s story, a child in foster care arrived home from school one day to find her suitcase with all her belongings sitting outside the house where she was staying with a foster family. The packed suitcase was the family’s way of telling the child that she would be moving on to another home.
Hails said he created a sculpture of a girl sitting with a suitcase and titled it “Dreamin’ Home.”
“How she dreams and wishes for home, hopeful, but unsure of the journey it will take to get her there,” reads the inscription that describes the piece on Hails’ website http://rockyhails-sculpture.com. The sculpture was cast in bronze and was featured at an open house event at the adoption agency that employed the staffer who shared the girl’s story with Hails.
Another sculpture that has been well received features a family emerging out of a storm shelter after a tornado has ripped through the neighborhood.
That one, Hails said, was inspired close to home — after the devastating 2013 tornadoes that ripped apart portions of Moore and other areas of the state.
“I kept hearing the reports of people saying that they had lost everything but they would rebuild,” he said.
Inspired by their courage and perseverance, Hails crafted the sculpture called “We Will Build Again.” A relative connected to some Moore residents shared a picture of the sculpture and it was eventually shared around the metro.
Hails said the sculpture was cast in bronze and now is displayed in Moore City Hall. He said he was commissioned to do another one to be displayed in the new Moore Hospital.
One of the clay sculptures of Moses with the Ten Commandments is displayed on Hails dining room table. Another room that has been cast in bronze is featured prominently on his desk at Heritage Baptist.
“It’s called ‘Treasure the Word,’ “he said.
“That’s a big part of who I am and what I do, so that one’s on my desk. I think all this is part of the reason the Lord has given me artistic ability — it’s another way of communicating and giving hope.”