Krystal Stone works two very different jobs with one common denominator: her hands.
Depending on the day, she is either running them through a client’s hair as a stylist or using them to crank ratchets as a mechanic in her own garage.
“Both of my careers happen to involve hands-on work,” said Stone, 35. “There’s just something about working with tools.”
At MotoResto in Portland – which she co-owns with her husband — Stone works under a cherry-red 1963 Corvette Stingray modernizing the brakes from drums to disks. It’s a clean, well-lit space packed with vintage automobiles, from a Volvo station wagon to a Rolls-Royce.
Krystal Stone, co-owner of MotoResto on Warren Avenue in Portland, works on a drum-to-disk brake conversion on a 1963 Corvette Stingray. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
In dark overalls, a beanie and a headlamp, Stone rifles through a tool kit filled with pink snap-on screwdrivers and purple Matco wrenches.
“I really like the problem-solving,” she said about her garage work. “I like … being able to literally get my hands dirty and learn something from it. To be able to feel satisfaction when I have figured something out and go, ‘Yeah, I did that. That’s awesome.’”
Stone grew up in Maine, tinkering in her father’s Lebanon garage with old snowmobiles, dirt bikes, a three-wheeler.
Krystal Stone, co-owner of MotoResto on Warren Avenue in Portland, works on a 1963 Corvette Stingray. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
“He had all sorts of fun projects he was working on,” she said. “So I was rebuilding those with him.”
Family also gave Stone a taste of her other career. She grew up with a hairstyling aunt.
“I just remember being younger and her coming over to the house to do our at-home haircuts – and just always being fascinated by it,” she said.
Krystal Stone works on Ashley Talon’s hair at Artisan Hair Studio in South Portland. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
At Artisan Hair Studio in South Portland – where Stone frequently radically changes her own look – her tools are scissors and pink hair clips and dye brushes.
“What I love about doing hair is the creativity,” she said. “I love being able to put a little bit of myself in every haircut that I do. And also just meeting fantastic people – hearing their stories, getting to know people.”
Krystal Stone cuts Ashley Talon’s hair at Artisan Hair Studio in South Portland. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
But hands-on all the time has its drawbacks.
“It’s a little tough,” she said. “I already have some arthritis building up in my right hand, so there are certain things that I have to ask one of the boys at the shop to tighten down because my hand just won’t do it. Or at the hair salon I have to really be careful to stretch in between clients.”
Not that she’s looking to swap out either career.
Krystal Stone, co-owner of MotoResto on Warren Avenue in Portland, poses for a portrait in the garage. Ben McCanna/Staff Photographer
“I wouldn’t trade this for the world,” she said.
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