FORT BENNING, Ga., (July 9, 2014) -- Inspiration comes in many forms and sometimes from many people and different places.
For Vietnam-era veteran and retired Sgt. 1st Class Franky Hicks, his inspiration began at an early age with his mother Eleanor, continued with his travel as the son of a Soldier and was etched in his mind after reading a magazine article in August 1996 featuring the works of artist Charles Ewing.
Hicks, who specializes in creating clayboard etchings, which he said some call scratchboard, donated a piece to the Hampton Inn Columbus/ South-Fort Benning adjacent to the National Infantry Museum, which he has named the Capture of Freedom.
"I wanted to do something that captured freedom," he said. "The horse, a stallion running loose in the wild ... he's free. The waterfall in the background runs free. Sitting Bull, who sits in the center with the horse, he was running free, too.
"Then you have the Soldier kneeling with the cemetery to the right, that Soldier is free now. Then you have the Doughboy ... and that is where it all started ... the Infantry. Then you have the eagle and our flag ... that is our freedom.
"So, I call it the Capture of Freedom, which is represented in many ways throughout the piece."
After spending the early part of his career in Korea on the demilitarized zone, Hicks said he participated in the Vietnamese refugee operations and after an array of other positions retired from the Army at Fort Benning in 1994 as an 11M Bradley commander.
From 1988 to his retirement from the Army, the then 38-year-old single parent said his primary focus was raising his three sons and concentrating on his Army career. Following his retirement, he began on his lifelong love - art.
"My mother use to do a lot of oil painting," he said. "You know how it is. I used to peep over her shoulder to see what she was doing. And then I learned a lot from reading books. It started with me doodling on a piece of paper and I said 'let me find something to keep me preoccupied.' And, art was kind of one of those things that stuck with me."
Hicks said his travels abroad helped broaden his experience in art.
"(As a dependent) a majority of my time I grew up in Japan," he said. "I learned a little bit of the culture, a little of their language and some of their artwork. It was where I really got fully interested in art."
At first, he said he worked with mechanical ink pens, learned how to draw people and in 1996, noticed the works of Ewing in The Artist's magazine.
"This guy (Ewing) ... this is where I learned," he said thumbing though the August 1996 magazine with Ewing's work. "You know I never had any school training. So, I said, 'let me go ahead and get some school training,' so I took a course through International Correspondence Schools."
Hicks, who said clayboard artwork came about in 1992 with Ewing, uses color pencils or white soft chalk to draw on the clayboard, which is fine, white china clay, coated with black ink. Then, with etching and sculpting tools, removes the black ink to reveal the white clay beneath the surface.
When the process is complete, the art is revealed in black and white.
Hicks said the Capture of Freedom took about 15 days to create and worked on it about 45 minutes at a time.
"It's a nice piece," he said. "It's a limited edition and I only made one. Even if I decide to have regular prints made, they (Hampton Inn Columbus/South-Fort Benning) have the original. The Soldiers come in here, the Families come in here, so I thought it was fitting (to have it here). I think the staff here at the Hampton Inn South enjoys having it here, too."
Hicks said creating the clayboard art helps him relieve stress from the intensity of his current job as a licensed criminal defense investigator and part owner of Attorney Svc. & Legal Investigation, LLC.
And, just as Hicks' artistic interests developed from watching his mother, his son Paul, 31, who is employed at AFLAC, carries on the family tradition in the arts by having an art gallery of his own. On his website, www.fineartamerica.com/profiles/paul-hicks.html, Paul attributes his love for art to his father and being "awestruck by the artwork created by his father, Franky Hicks."
Franky Hicks, who has made sketches of Colin Powell, Dale Earnhardt, the Vietnam Wall, Richard Nixon, Old Man River and Princess Diana holding a child in South Africa, has some of his work displayed on his Facebook page, the Franky Hicks Art gallery.
For those who want to see Capture of Freedom for themselves, visit the Hampton Inn Columbus/South-Fort Benning. The artwork is kept over the fireplace in the breakfast dining area.
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