I select the stone and cut it up on the saw. I think of this as stretching the canvas. I remove the saw whip marks from the surface and hone to 400 grit on a slow speed to avoid burning the surface.. This brings out the sediment and will allow the template rubber to stick.

I take a photograph self portrait, send it to myself, print it on a photocopier, trace it onto sandblast resistant rubber with biro and carbon paper, cut around the tracing with a Stanley knife and separate the positive and negative material.

Throughout this process I work quickly resisting and rejecting exactness and craft, allowing for a purity of expression, error, inexactitude and their consequences to evolve an uncontrived and authentic end product. Like a game of Chinese Whispers there are simplifications and exaggerations.  Im rebelling against the precision of my training as restoration stone carver and mason where tolerance is stifling. Just as i’m rebelling against my training by combining natural stone with cement, concrete and iron. I spend no time measuring and looking for ratio and proportion in millimetres. As I work on the photocopy i notice asymmetry in my own body of which i was previously oblivious. My stance in the photo is also asymmetrical – at which point I might have contrived to retake the photo attempting a more formal symmetry. However my intention is to present the subjective human, not some objective ideal.

Next I stuck the rubber sheet onto the honed limestone, set up the sand blaster and pulled the trigger.

At this point things become chaotic. The black abrasive grit quickly fills the workshop, limiting visibility. The aim is to avoid the grit and compressed air getting under the edges of the rubber and lifting it off, blurring the finished outline. Its hard to see what effect the abrasion is having. I don’t have a sand blasting cabinet that improves control. The intensity of the process is exhilarating and exhausting. Im getting better at fine tuning the various taps on the compressor to achieve the right balance between the flow of abrasives and the air pressure.

The abrasive erodes the soft lime matrix of the stone revealing the fossil fragment. I dont want to burrow to far in to the soft areas. Im learning what effect the blaster has on the material. I am looking for a balanced finish. I peel away the template. I jet blast the stone. Im pleased with the result. In fact Im exhilarated.