Paul

I started my career as a plasterer as a skinny 16-year-old apprentice - I wasn't the usual candidate for a livelihood in construction, being the slightly nerdy type.

I still remember my first day on a job site - my plastering mentors might have been amazing craftsmen but their interpersonal skills needed a little, er, tweaking.  So as you can imagine, I had to learn fast.  But despite this, one thing that stands out about those guys back then was that they took their craft very, very seriously.  Every day they wore spotless white overalls - there wasn't a pair of Umbro tracksuit bottoms in sight.  Their trowels were gleaming.  Dodgy workmanship or corner-cutting just would not be accepted.  They had a distinct air of arrogance, they were that good.  I really admired them.

I loved plastering and worked hard, not only to learn the practical side but also went to college and eventually did my Advanced Craft diploma.  It was while at college that I first spotted some very old plastering books:
Verrall's "The Modern Plasterer"
Bankart's "The Art of the Plasterer"
Van den Branden and Knowles' "Plastering Skill and Practice"

For years, my bedtime reading consisted of Millar's "Plastering, Plain and Decorative", (although perhaps that's an admission too far)...

...It was from reading these books that my interest in coloured and polished lime plaster finishes developed.  Initially, I started with scagliola, where virtually any type of marble can be imitated using gypsum plaster, oxide and earth pigments, and glue.  So I did some experimenting with both traditional scagliola and marazzo scagliola.  But at that time, there was absolutely no demand for this sort of work in Northern Ireland, so it was purely as an interest.

By this time I'd been self-employed for a few years and my work consisted of bog-standard plasterwork, which I did well, but didn't find it inspiring.  The most I could hope for was some moulding and modelling work.