through the NTCA. What I do take away from it is knowledge and a community that wants to bring this age-old trade into the future with informed and educated installers. “My greatest satisfaction is solv- ing problems, and the finished product,” he concluded. “I thor- oughly enjoy the challenges of the intricate and often monotonous details that make my work stand above my competition.” NTCA MEMBER SPOTLIGHT –––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––––– This shower featured blue encaustic tile with 3”x 6” subway tile. Moreno scratched and floated the tile with a pan liner. His biggest challenge was cutting the light detail on the ceiling since it wasn’t planned. The encaustic tiles are much thicker than the subways and had to be thinned accordingly. “I just looked up at one point as I was laying out the ceiling, and saw the detail,” he said. This spontaneous, unplanned Saltillo cor- ner sun was just fun to do, Moreno said. “I often do not see inspiration until I am hands-on doing something,” he explained. This 200-sq.-ft. project of round Saltillo was planned, and in great detail. “It was a lot of work and took about two weeks from start to finish, and is the only round Saltillo floor I have ever seen,” he said. “I Googled the hell out of round Saltillos with zero success.” 60 TileLetter | March 2019