Sidi hummed quietly as they strode into the repurposed warehouse. It had been turned into an art collective several years prior, much to their elation since their last studio space had closed. The fluffy black cat was wearing a snug grubby jumpsuit that hugged their figure while still letting them crouch and stuff like that.
A magpie with a soldering iron in one wing-hand raised her attention from the jewel setting she had in front of her and waved with her free wing. "Afternoon Sidi, staying late tonight?"
The feline shrugged. "We'll see where the wheel takes me."
The bird seemed to be satisfied with that answer, returning her gaze to the silverwork.
Sidi headed to the end of the old warehouse where the kilns had been set up. Two big gas kilns, a wood-burning one for Roku and other traditional techniques, and electric kilns for lower heat claystock. On large multi-level carts were the contents of the kilns from the previous night's firing. The cat soon found a vase they had set to be bisqued the day before and carefully picked it up. The exterior showed the swirl of two clay bodies drawn out by the throwing process, but the inside would need a ceramic glaze if it were to be functional.
Keeping their fluffy tail close to their body so as not to bump it into any of the other artists working, Sidi headed to the nearby alcove setup alongside one wall, where trash bins were all lined up, each with a different set of test tiles hung on the wall over it. Setting the bisque-fired vase down on a nearby work table, the black cat lifted the lid off one of the plastic trash cans to reveal it was filled with a clearish fluid with a muddy consistency about a half a foot deep into it.
Rather automatically, they headed over to a section of the wall with a series of cricket bat sized paddles propped up. Grasping one and doing an idle twirl off to the left of their body as they headed back to the opened tub, Sidi held it handle-end up and thrust it downward like a sword into the fluid. Using both hands, the feline agitated and stirred up the muck in the bottom until it was mostly homogeneous, careful to scrape the bottom of the bin for excess sediment.
Laying the paddle across the open top of the bin, Sidi took a measuring cup from the high shelf and delved it into the liquid glaze. After a moment to wait for it to stop dripping, they poured it carefully into the waiting vase.
The cat poured out the extra back into the bin, setting the measuring cup atop the paddle, before picking up their vase and swirling it with both hands. Sidi moved to the tub again and tilted the vase until glaze started to pour out again, but only just. They rotated the vase in their hands so that the flow coated every inner surface up to the curved lip, then held it upside down to let it drip away from the outside of the vessel.
Sidi set it upside down on a grate on the work table once it stopped dripping, before going to the sink to wash off the measuring cup and the paddle. Once that was done, the black cat figured that the pot's glaze had firmed up enough to turn it right-side up again and carried it over to a stack of cubby-holes for artists. They set the vase in their own to continue drying, then hummed idly to themself as they looked over the plastic bags of wet clay.
Grasping a dark clay with a low particulate count, the feline's other hand grasped their work bucket and tools and they headed towards where the electric pottery wheels sat. Nearby were some work-tables for clay that had blocks of plaster as their tops. Sidi set their things down on one of these, before unwrapping the clay. They used a wire to cut a block off and tossed it on the plaster. After closing the bag back up, the black cat took the block and began to knead it into a ball with practiced motions.
As they worked any air bubbles out of the clay, they pondered what they would make. Sidi mused on the various forms they'd been doing a lot of recently, then shrugged, figuring that the clay would guide them as it normally did.
Mounting the ball of clay onto a wooden disk, they carried it over to a wheel and set it so that its registers held the disk in place. They brought their tools over to the wheel as well, then filled up the bucket with warm water from the tap. Once everything was set up, Sidi sat at the wheel, setting a foot onto the pedal control. Pouring a little water from a sponge on top of the clay ball, they set the wheel spinning.
With both hands they carefully worked the rotating clay until the slightly off-center ball was a centered cylinder. Sidi turned up the speed, added a bit more water to the top, and began to use both hands to draw the form taller with slow, practiced squeezing from the base to the top. The feline's mind wandered as their muscle memory took charge.
Once they thought it was tall enough, they dipped their right hand into the bucket, wiggling their fingers a bit to thin the muck accumulated there. Once that was done, the black cat took the tip of their fingers held out as a blade and pressed to the center of the top of the cylinder, using their left paw to support the side and keep it from just buckling.
"Now...." Sidi murmured to the glistening pillar. "What are you going to be...?" They drove their fingers downward, opening up the clay.
