When Forrest Stone was just a toddler, he met a man who lived down the street from his grandparents in Wendell, Massachusetts, who would forever after his sense of beauty. The man was an incredible artist, though you have never seen his work in a museum. Aside from a single gallery show, Achi Sullo never tried to sell his work or share it with the world. Instead, he slathered canvases in color, creating bold abstract curves of salmon and rust, emerald and orange, and carved plywood into similarly sinuous shapes, all for his own enjoyment. “He was sort of a recluse,” says Stone. It didn’t take long for Stone to realize that Sullo’s work was “just amazing.” He spent years listening to the older man’s stories—all through high school, all through college. Sullo told Stone about how he stormed Normandy Beach on D-Day as a young soldier and about how he got his start as an artist by painting camouflage patterns onto army vehicles. He told the younger artist about his meeting with Picasso in Italy, how he made his way through art school, and, finally, how he decided to stop selling his work to the public.

These stories made a big impression on Stone. They’re not the only reason Stone became an artist (his mother is a painter, too) but he calls these experiences “hugely influential.” After high school, Stone went on to study sculpture at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (MassArt), where he spent his days in the wood shop and metal studio. He became a craftsman who toggles between big projects and small ones, making bar stools and barrels. Like his mentor, Stone became an artist who is reluctant to sell his work to just anyone, who views his creative output as part of a larger system of values and morals.

While some of his more recent work is located in private homes or on the road (he has been known to collaborate with motorcyclists to make their custom bike dreams come true). Stone’s primary income come from the craft beer sector. In 2017 and 2018 he worked on a series of projects for Bissell Brothers. He designed and built their koelschip (an open tank used to wild-ferment beers) as well as its surrounding fermentation room. He created a seven-foot-tall foeder (a type of wooden barrel used in brewing) for the company, as well as a distinctive wavy poplar wood that measures 17-feet by 15-feet and hangs behind the bar at the Thompson’s Point location. “My community and the clients that I like working for have driven my career choices almost 100 percent,” he says. “I’m a small, one-man shop. I don’t advertise, and I don’t cold call. All my business comes from word of mouth. It’s awesome that, on a beer forum, a head brewer can say they need a welder and someone I’ve worked for will suggest me.” While other industries can be competitive, Stone believes that the local Maine beer industry isn’t driven by an “only me, only mine” attitude, as he puts it. Although he entered the beer world through working with Bissell Brothers, he’s gone on to work with Battery Steele Brewing in Portland, Brewery Extrava in Portland, Exhibit “A” Brewing Company in Framingham, Massachusetts, and Naukabout Brewery in Mashpee, Massachusetts.