This dissertation advances an intervention into the study of Roman wall painting in central Italy from the Hellenistic period to the early Imperial period (c. 3rd C. BCE-1st C. CE) by foregrounding processes of craft production and material transformation that typically fall outside of art historical analyses of Roman plasterwork. I do so by structuring my project around a bottom-up approach to the study of ancient Roman frescoes, foremost beginning with the laborer (whether free, freed, or enslaved) and their embodied knowledge of making. Methodological tools like chaîne-opératoire drive my study forward from these starting points into episodes of creation, reception, defacement, restoration, and demolition. The outcome of this thesis is twofold: on the one hand, my project achieves a more dynamic history of Roman plasterwork by identifying heterodoxic craft practices over the longue durée; and, on the other hand, my project enriches our ability to recognize how meaning, in part, could be made manifest through dynamic acts of making.