Interview with: Whatimleavingbehind
March 2026
Whatimleavingbehind, is a self taught anonymous artist, author, and poet. His work is art as therapy, an outlet, often combining allegory and color psychology.
Welcome Whatimleavingbehind, first tell us why you chose to pursue this career?
Began as an outlet and became my life.
Could you tell us what made you decide to start this stone book project?
Everything fell into place. I've been collecting rocks for a long time. I keep them like paint, for color psychology. I like to walk, and love rockhounding even more. The rocks all need to fall into a specific shape, hardness, and size to be used. So, even with my collection, I have already cut all the rocks that are usable. I get to rockhound as much as I want now.
How long do you think it will take to complete this project?
Well, originally I had thought it would take 6-9 months. After I got momentum it became clear that's not gona happen. Using all the material I already had and time rockhounding since this began I have over 125 slabs cut. Ready to be ground down on flat lap, then tumbled. The trilogy needs over 325 slabs, both sides of each slab are about 1 book page. I need several long trips to the Northwoods and Upper Peninsula Michigan to complete this project. All the locations near me I frequent I have combed over the entire beach many times there isn't much left that's usable. Only after storms will there be new material that's thrown up onto shore edge. Even then its a rock or 2 and usually the size enough for a single slab maybe 2. So it will be very slow finding new slabs after this first 125 slabs of over 10 years of rockhounding I have now.
It all relies on the Northwoods which is actually an ocean of rocks. The dense forest you see there, just under the grass or brush is actually glacial till, not dirt/soil. If you dug anywhere, it's sand/glacial till thought that might surprise some people. I think it's cool. Best guess, it'll take no more than 2 years, for the tumblers and finding the rocks. I'm having the time of my life.
What goes into making a single slab, the process?
Needs to be harder than a pocket knife scratch for longevity, over 5.5 mohs or close. Color/pattern needs to match the text from book being engraved on that slab. Find it, cut it, grind out scratches on 60 then 180 diamond grit flat lap. Tumble only using 400/600 silicon carbide grit, 3 TBS, water 3/4 full. Using as much ceramic media for tumbler as I can until right before it's too heavy to spin as each tumbler has only 1 slab any less and it will thud and vibrate strongly, I broke a tumbler experimenting.
After 2 days turn upside down and flip over for another 2 days. Very hard rocks sometimes need 6-8 total days. They are done when there is no glare on both sides. For readability and texture. I want the focus to be on the text, for the colors or pattern to be visible but not distracting. They have a slight tug on skin when handling and a faint whisper when turning over like fine sandpaper. Also, no traces of scratches are left as I usually leave some on they can take forever to fully remove on the flat lap.
You say you're matching the stone slabs to scenes, could you explain?
Of course. For example one character intro, Kageyama, is described wearing a charcoal suit. The slab, and following slabs for the entire intro scene are using a rock with that exact color. This is one of the plainest sounding examples but I chose to use this one as it's actually one of the hardest.
Rocks that look like beautiful forests, or something like that, like epidote, or like a bunch of leaves like green quartz are actually not hard to find at all, but the exact shape and size needed makes it alot more challenging though. You'd be surprised at what half the rocks at any beach look like if you cut them open, in general.
But in this case, all the ones that look black actually have a great variation in hardness. Half are excluded due to being too soft. Then alot have essentially little pits or negative space bubbles, vesicles, throughout the entire rock. Many that look jet black are actually even as light as medium grey sometimes. So this rock for intro scene, is not only very hard, but actually took cutting windows/endpiece of well over a dozen rocks that looked raven/dusty black-grey. Those 15 or so grey will still be used in other scenes though.
What has working in stone taught you?
What has stood out the most actually, is the awe of ancient civilizations across the planet I used to have has changed. Stone is not fun to work in. But it feels deeply rewarding. It sounds similar to what I might have said a year ago if I were asked about ancient stonework, but with more intensity on the clarity. They were exacting, truly believing in what they were doing, religion, astrology, history, accomplishments.
The certainty. That's what has changed. These books mean a great deal to me. The thought of it being lost in a few hundred years when the paper copies turn to dust. I put my heart into them, the internet has only been around so long, solar flares, digital copies etc. I'm not so sure, across even a few hundred years. Who knows. No one wants to be forgotten. I like to think most artists each in their own way aside from expressing themselves are saying I was here.
We are at the end of this short interview, would you like to add something about your artistic research? How did you find the collaboration with our gallery?
I'm grateful for this collaboration, thank you very much. Yes, if everything goes well by the end of the year or sooner ''Little Bronze Ghost's'' will be published. All profits are pledged to The American Foundation for Suicide, Wildcats Conservation Alliance, Tarahumara Children's Hospital Fund, and The Children of Siberia Charitable Foundation.