{"id":178332,"date":"2025-09-24T10:26:23","date_gmt":"2025-09-24T10:26:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178332\/"},"modified":"2025-09-24T10:26:23","modified_gmt":"2025-09-24T10:26:23","slug":"montana-sculptor-debuts-8000-pound-mammoth-at-burning-man","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/178332\/","title":{"rendered":"Montana sculptor debuts 8,000-pound mammoth at Burning Man"},"content":{"rendered":"

BOZEMAN \u2014 Last year, metal sculptor Clinton Lesh <\/a>turned heads with a towering 12-foot jackalope. This year, his creation was even larger: an 8,000-pound woolly mammoth.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe tusks \u2014 I made them bigger than historically they should be, but I think it turned out really well,\u201d Lesh said.<\/p>\n

Pictured: Clinton Lesh in front of his mammoth sculpture (photo credit: MTN News)<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/p>\n

MTN News<\/p>\n

Lesh has spent nearly a decade turning sparks and metal scraps into large-scale works of art. He earned a degree in art from Montana State University, where he forged a connection with renowned Montana sculptor Jim Dolan \u2014 creator of the \u201cBlue Horses\u201d in Three Forks and numerous other celebrated pieces across the state.<\/p>\n

The jackalope Lesh created last year<\/a>, was \u201ckind of our Big Foot of eastern Montana. As a little kid you think, \u2018oh, that\u2019s pretty cool, I want to find one of those.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

The jackalope was also Lesh\u2019s first piece for Burning Man, the annual art festival in Nevada\u2019s Black Rock Desert.<\/p>\n

\u201cEssentially 80,000 people show up to the desert where there\u2019s nothing, and they build a city for a week. It\u2019s all about radical self-expression and decommodification,\u201d Lesh said.<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/p>\n

MTN News<\/p>\n

About 75 large-scale works are commissioned each year, with a total of around $1 million in grants awarded to participating artists. Lesh was among those awarded for his mammoth, inspired by this year\u2019s \u201cTomorrow and Today\u201d theme. Which was supposed to be all about the future…<\/p>\n

\u201cI wanted to stand out, so I looked into the past \u2014 dinosaurs, Ice Age animals. And I heard that they were cloning mammoths. And I was like, well, that\u2019s kind of perfect,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The 12-foot tall, 22-foot long, 4-ton mammoth took five months to build. It’s covered with more than 5,000 hand-welded metal \u201chairs,\u201d and features Lesh\u2019s signature trap doors revealing interior LED panels.<\/p>\n

\u201cI\u2019ve got about 20 of these LED panels set up on the inside of here,\u201d Lesh said.<\/p>\n

Lesh tells me the hardest part about creating this mammoth? Having to design the sculpture to split in half for travel to Nevada, with removable tusks as well.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou get a lot of good looks going down the road,\u201d Lesh said.<\/p>\n

\"Poster<\/p>\n

Clinton Lesh<\/p>\n

At Burning Man, the sculpture became a gathering spot.<\/p>\n

\u201cTon of compliments,\u201d Lesh said. \u201cThere was a couple that got married in front of the mammoth this year. They were like, \u2018This is our favorite sculpture, so we decided to do our ceremony in front of it.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Materials were sourced entirely from Montana \u2014 its eyes from a Townsend glass blower, and stainless steel from a company in Billings.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re very soft and add a soul to him, almost,\u201d Lesh said of the glass eyes.<\/p>\n

WATCH: Montana artist stands out with mammoth sculpture at Burning Man 2025<\/p>\n

Montana-born artist creates 8,000 pound mammoth sculpture for Buyrning Man<\/p>\n

Representing his home state, Lesh said, felt significant.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s an honor. A lot of people view Montana as this beautiful state with all these wonderful things going on, and then when you can bring art from Montana? They\u2019re like, \u2018Oh, they\u2019ve kinda got it all up there,\u2019\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Lesh plans to return to Burning Man next year with another large-scale creature. If you were curious what Lesh does with these sculptures after Burning Man? He sells them! The jackalope now resides in New Mexico, while the mammoth is still for sale.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"BOZEMAN \u2014 Last year, metal sculptor Clinton Lesh turned heads with a towering 12-foot jackalope. This year, his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":178333,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[56],"tags":[228,226,227,229,88],"class_list":{"0":"post-178332","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-arts-and-design","8":"tag-arts","9":"tag-arts-and-design","10":"tag-artsanddesign","11":"tag-design","12":"tag-entertainment"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178332","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=178332"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/178332\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/178333"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=178332"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=178332"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=178332"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}