Abbotsford, British Columbia –
Behind the blueberry fields in British Columbia’s Fraser Valley sits an unassuming barn where something extraordinary is being made.
A small team of welders, led by 53-year-old Kevin Stone, are putting the finishing touches on a giant metal dragon.
The towering steel structure is more than 17 meters high and weighs nearly 7,000 kilograms.
“It’s a complex job, but I love what I’m doing, and I love the new challenges that each sculpture brings,” Stone said.
Stone is a professional welding machine manufacturer.he is also a passionate artist.
“For as long as I can remember, my mom has complained that I draw everything. I like to be creative and create interesting pieces.”
In 2003, Stone’s idea caught the attention of a former boss, who asked him to build a gargoyle for the roof of his welding shop.
“I took some scrap metal and used that to build it,” Stone said. “Gargoyles got me started on collaborations and other large sculptures.”
A steel gargoyle about two meters high is Kevin Stone’s first large-scale sculpture.
Since then, Stone has produced many large-scale statues, including those depicting eagles in flight and hunting.
In 2011, he was contracted to create a piece for Dolly Parton’s Tennessee amusement park. The mixed-metal eagle has a 17-metre wingspan and “now sits at the entrance of a popular Dollywood roller coaster.”
On February 28, 2012, Kevin Stone’s Dollywood Eagle sculpture was unveiled at an American amusement park.
Another notable sculpture by Stone is a towering T-Rex. Made of polished stainless steel, the 15-meter-long dinosaur took nearly 20 months to complete.
It was commissioned by a private art collector who planned to install it outside his home in Lake Okanagan, British Columbia.
“Almost everything I build now is a six-figure sculpture,” Stone said. “Many of my clients are in the US.”
Nearly all of his statues are private commissions, with prices ranging from $40,000 to $400,000.
Last year, however, he was approached by a cryptocurrency company looking to create an unusual marketing tool.
“They called me and wanted me to build a giant goat, but the problem was, they wanted Elon Musk’s head on the goat.”
(BC Artist Kevin Stone)
The company name is Elon GOAT, statement on its website The statue was designed to commemorate Musk’s “many achievements and commitment to cryptocurrencies,”
Stone admitted he thought the request was “weird,” but he was also intrigued. After some initial planning and negotiations, he committed to making the billionaire’s headshot.
This musk bustMade from eight-inch-thick aluminum, it took more than three months to complete and is currently touring the United States.
“It’s just a crazy project,” Stone said. “It’s fun and too crazy to want to be a part of.”
(BC Artist Kevin Stone)
In creating the sculptures, Stone was assisted by his wife Michelle and two welding apprentices. He says he loves sharing his knowledge because he feels like some of the metalwork he does is a dying art.
“I don’t work with a computer,” he says, “I cut everything by hand, and in general all the sculptures I build are visual, meaning I look at a picture and zoom in and build it in my head. it.”
Hands-on let Stone be meticulous with the metal. One of his most detailed works is a dragon, which he says his client wants to model after the creature from the TV series “Game of Thrones.”
“It was scary at first because I’d never seen the show. My wife and I binge-watched the entire first series just to see exactly what we were building.”
After researching the show, Stone not only built a replica dragon, but made it breathe fire.
“It was really hard to figure out how to create a fire control system, but eventually we did, and now we have this massive sculpture that shoots flames,” he said.
Over a year in the making, Kevin Stone’s metal dragon sculpture is made of steel and covered with metal scales.
After nearly two years of building the dragon, it is now nearing completion and will soon be delivered to its owner, who lives in Utah.
As the project nears completion, Stone is already conceiving new metal sculptures in hopes of creating something bigger.
“My future plans are to build bigger buildings. I’ve always wanted to be an artist building the world’s largest metal sculpture, so I’m always looking for the next big challenge.”
Kevin Stone’s T-Rex sculpture (Melanie Nagy/CTV News)