FLORIDA -- When Hurricane Charley hit Florida this past August it caused extensive power outages all across the state. One of those who lost power was teacher and amateur mosaicist Chris Carey.

“During the hurricane, I was sitting in my workroom getting ready to light a candle, when something caught my eye,” said Carey. “When I turned, all the mosaic fish on the wall were glowing! It was certainly the most delightful thing that happened during the hurricane.”

Carey had been creating mosaic fish for a wall on her porch, and they were hanging on the walls of her home office waiting for their new home. On several of the fish, she used Laticrete[r] SpectraLOCKTM grout with the glow-in-the-dark Glow Dazzle component.

“The package information said to make sure the grout had several hours of full sun so it would glow,” Carey said. “I have lots of trees, and the only place on my property that gets direct sunlight is on my roof. So I figured I wasn't going to get much result from my grout experiment. Yet even without hours of direct sunlight it works wonderfully.”

It was not by chance that Carey chose Laticrete SpectraLOCK. The mosaicist has done a number of mosaics in the past using a program called TileCreator from Mosaic Tile Group. The software allows a person to create a mosaic tile design and then shows them how to assemble their design. She was introduced to SpectraLOCK Dazzle through that.

“When we developed the software, we made SpectraLOCK the sole grout that could be used within the program,” said Andrew Simmons, president of Mosaic Tile Group. “Our folks here only know one company to recommend when it comes to tile installation products: Laticrete.”