Woman Creates 15-Foot High 'Will-Hay Nelson' Hay Bale Sculpture

May 19, 2020 by apost team

Huddleston, Beth Bays is a Virginia native who makes hay bale sculptures of movie characters, celebrities, and mascots.

In November 2019, she struck a chord with her local community when she made a Willie Nelson sculpture.

Beth Bays began her work when the town held an annual competition for the best hay sculpture around nine years ago, according to Newshub. As time passed, fewer people participated, leaving only Beth to delight the town with these gigantic masterpieces. She’s made the Wizard of Oz, a drummer bear, a cow, an elephant and characters from Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer.

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Friends help her put the sculptures together, stacking hay bales with a John Deere tractor, Classic Country Music reports. According to Beth, that’s the easy part. Once the frame of the statue is finished, it’s up to Beth to add the small details—such as eyes and arms—and it’s more challenging than people might think.

People from all over town come to have a look at Beth’s creation. Some honk their horns as they drive past it, a very country salute. Other visitors leave thank-you notes pinned to the sculpture if she isn't around when they arrive.

They even created a funny music video called Will-Hay Nelson on the Farm!

Hay bale sculpting isn’t the first thing that we think of when someone speaks of art, but Beth’s success shows that the human imagination can make something marvelous out of the unexpected.

As we grow older, the imagination is often neglected for "useful" grown-up things. Thankfully, not everyone is willing to limit their vision to what is logical. That is where art comes in: You take a bale of hay and a bit of styrofoam, and you’ve made a Will-Hay Nelson sculpture that the whole town loves.

If you haven’t done anything artistic in a while, we hope this story reminds you that the sky’s the limit—and anything can be used to build something new. What do you think of Beth's creations? Let us know and pass this story on to fellow art lovers.