Marching to Fort Stockton (Texas Country Reporter)

Meet the man behind the massive metal markers in Fort Stockton.

Brian Norwood
Fort Stockton, TX

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Video Script:: 

[Music] for decades a friendly feathery mascot named Paisano Pete has put Fort Stockton on the map but some larger-than-life sculptures going up just outside of town may soon steal the spotlight from the world's biggest Roadrunner [Music] it's kind of hard to tell but I assume these are horses legs they're pulling up my wife refers to these is the horse bottoms and that one sheet that you're seeing there is 10 feet tall 10 feet from the hoods to the top of the piece looks like besides the art of it there's some serious engineering involved here absolutely and that's part of the problem with this I am neither an architect or engineer so I'm a little out of my element on this part [Music] Brian Norwood built these flat metal behemoths all by himself but putting the pieces together we'll take a dedicated crew of men and machines one by one a two-dimensional Cavalry Regiment appears on the horizon and from the highway they looked like a distant band of fighting men frozen in time welcoming visitors to this West Texas frontier town they're really supposed to appear life-size from the highway you really don't get that idea of how large they actually are unless you can come right up to them but the idea is yeah to make it just have people stop for just that instant and think wow that's a little cavalry riders going out there Brian silhouettes begin their journey in the tiny oil field town of djal New Mexico and to see the artist in action we waited until no one was looking and tiptoed across the state line watching a 15-foot Apache appear out of raw steel was certainly worth the trip [Music] what I'm using is 10 or 10 foot by 40 foot sheets each sheet weighs over 4,000 pounds close to 5,000 the process that I use is to first draw out what I want and design that to a particular scale in this case I've drawn it so that one inch equals two feet well while it's on the ground your perspective is so skewed it looks so drawn out that it's it's very difficult to tell just exactly what you've got you have to have that right in the design process before you enlarge it [Music] Brian can barely cut his silhouettes quickly enough Fort Stockton is adding a team of Apache Indians on the western side of town and the city of Hobbs commissioned a military themed piece near their airfield but Brian's most impressive achievement yet sits closer to home out among jazz dust and scrub brush stands a portrait of an old-time cattle drive when the Southwest Sun begins to set these metal Cowboys become shadows of the past that are truly a sight to behold well you know it's it's like real estate the key to the whole business is location location location it's best if you can put it up on a ridge where there's an unobstructed view behind it and especially if you can get it so that there's a good sunset behind it I do think that we have the most beautiful sunsets perhaps in the world around here to be able to take advantage of that of the beauty that God creates every evening for us is a great pleasure and an honor [Music] somehow Brian Norwood found a way to enhance the horizon with simple sweat and steal his cowboys Indians and military men make the perfect tribute to the history that came through here like legends made real Brian's characters will be crossing these Plains for decades reminding us all that we follow in the footsteps of giants [Music] you