I'm working on this piece, pietra dura sort of thing but with smalti, very fine cutting, very controlled. And yesterday I'm setting pieces and I notice there's a cicada shell stuck in the thinset near the edge. Must have fallen from the ceiling while I was spreading it, died there, dried out, became part of the substrate.

My first thought was to pick it out. But I looked at it for a while and I don't know. It's been there the whole time I've been working on this thing. It's not hurting anything. It's almost invisible unless you're right up close. So I'm going to tesserae right over it and leave it in there. A little fossil. A tiny uninvited collaborator from the studio ceiling.

This is what happens when you work on the floor. You make deals with the dust and the insects and the cats. 🙂