Oh no, I have beetles in the house! But this is actually a good thing. And anyway I coerced them to move to my studio. Two new beetles joined my other Beetle People.

I have been using Apoxie Fixit to repair a few fine line cracks in a Milestone Cement finish in our house bathroom. Milestone cement is a custom blend of acrylics and cement with colors, probably no longer available. It is applied in a very thin layers to provide an attractive water resistant finish.

It was used as the finish for our large walk-in shower. Years ago fine cracks appeared in lines over the breaks between sections of cement board underlayment. Possibly these should have been better prepared. Or maybe the wood blocking underneath was poorly done. Anyway some were wider than hairline and we decided that these needed to be repaired.

I found this to be finicky work that did not leave me a lot of energy for art! I had to experiment and find the right tool to open up the cracks before they could be filled. Inspired by the tradition of Kintsugi, I made no attempt to disguise the repairs as you can see in the photo.

Each time I worked I had a bit of leftover material. Of course I don’t throw away scraps if they might be useful. So I found a way to combine a tedious home repair task with a tiny bit of art! I just played with the first little scraps, but then these two tiny beetles happened along so I had beetles in the house!