If OU professor Jonathan Hils is anything, he’s one hell of a craftsman.

When Hils isn’t fabricating his own large-scale, highly intricate sculptural works, he’s molding the minds of students, teaching them how to execute their own artistic visions.

However, this semester, Hils also is leading by example with his very own installation at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art.

His exhibit — the second installment of the museum’s NEW FRONTIERS: Series for Contemporary Art — is entitled “Intersection” and explores the state of the American identity through handcrafted, life-size automobiles with a modern artistic twist, along with other works.

Hils’ style — a painstakingly intricate study in contrasts — allows him to further investigate the division between masculine and feminine attitudes in American culture.

And for all the success Hils has had in sculpture — including numerous solo and group exhibitions and being the recipient of the 2005 Oklahoma Visual Art Coalition Fellowship — he wasn’t always sure that the medium, or even art itself, was what he wanted to pursue.

Hils began college as a music major. Though he had studied art in high school, Hils said he wasn’t sure he wanted to pursue it as a career, until a chance encounter on campus swayed his decision.

“Due to a number of odd events, I found myself walking through the sculpture program at my undergraduate institution and instantly thought, ‘This feels really good here,’” Hils said. “It was loud, dirty and everyone seemed to be really happy and energized.

“It was an electric place, and I decided — on the spot — that I wanted to make sculptures.”

Hils found himself enticed by not only the energy of the medium, but also by the obstacles sculptors constantly have to conquer.

“I’m attracted to the problems of sculpture … the noises, the materials and overcoming the difficulties that gravity presents,” Hils said. “And I really enjoy the zone you find yourself in when things are clicking.

“It’s not unlike a marathon runner that breaks through the wall, and you almost feel like your gliding,” he continued. “Every sculpture is like gliding, and the satisfaction of landing only makes me want to go through the experience again and again.”

Hils rarely takes breaks from the work he loves so much, and his students know that better than anyone.

“[Hils] puts in amazingly long hours,” said Caelie Winchester, a 2009 OU alumna who was taught by Hils and briefly shared a studio space with him. “When he’s got a lot on his plate, I’m pretty sure he only stops to teach class, check his e-mail and sleep.

“Otherwise, he’s welding away, listening to NPR on the stereo full-blast.”

Hils said he puts in these long hours to be a role model for his aspiring artists.

“I try to set an example for my students by staying very busy and working as much as I can,” Hils said. “When you like what you’re doing, it’s a lost easier than it may seem.”

And as much as Hils enjoys his work, he is equally thrilled to set his students on route to finding that same passion.

“I love seeing students find their way, but I also know — and always reiterate to them — that in three years, in five years … their work will be much better,” Hils said. “Experience is the artist’s toolbox.”

And while he can’t teach experience, he can arm his students with the right point of view and attitude to succeed in art.

“You need to examine the world; you need to examine art,” Hils said. “You need to have a good footing of what’s important. That simply comes with maturity and dedication. I see my role as facilitating the path towards that future.”

If Hils’ individual successes are overshadowed by anything, it’s the impact he is having on his students, and whether it’s through his own works or the works that have been and will be produced by his students, we should see Hils’ influence around for quite some time.

“[Hils] taught me things that I not only still use but plan on using for the rest of my artistic life,” Winchester said. “His feedback was always honest and constructive … I think that I’ll always hear a little bit of his voice in my head when I’m critiquing my own work from now on.”