A brief paws
Dec. 5th, 2019 07:56 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
offcntrWhen we bought our house, nineteen years ago, there were two aspects that really clinched the deal for me. The first was the family room, a concrete-floored addition (under the horrible orange carpeting) with doors onto the driveway and the back porch. The second was the carport, which was flanked by not one but two storage units. I'd been sharing storage space with Denise's paper making projects for nine years; having dedicated storage for each of us was irresistible.
We closed in September, took possession October, and I spent a good deal of the first winter tearing up carpet and building a studio: building a work table and ware rack, bringing in a wheel and mounting the extruder and slab roller. I bought a used electric kiln, eventually a used pug mill, covered walls with wipeable paneling or fireproof hardibacker.
By the next summer, I was happily throwing and bisquing at home, and Denise was cutting and soaking buckets of plant materials for paper in the carport, cooking down and blending pulp on the back porch.
Where we discovered that the property already had a tenant: a burly grey-and-white cat that seemed to be living under the pottery shed. She was skittish and wild, but Denise talked to her in a calming voice, just sitting nearby and working, all summer. It got so she'd almost get close enough to pet, before veering off again.
Came one rainy fall evening. I'd gone on a grocery run, and since the studio door opens on the kitchen, I was bringing in the bags through that way when big grey-and-white kitty strolled in between my legs, looked around at the dry, warm space and said, Okay, this is good. I can live with this.
We named her Pearl, partly after a cat from my childhood, partly for the perfect white tip on her otherwise grey tail. She lived in the studio for a couple of weeks, while we litter-box trained her and then was introduced to the rest of the cats and the rest of the house. She rapidly rose to the top of the feline hierarchy, and lived out the rest of her days a pampered indoor cat.
There's hardly a trace of her in the studio anymore, except for this: a soup bowl with her paw print as she daintily made her way across a ware board of newly thrown pots. We used it for years until another, more rambunctious cat knocked it off the table and broke it. I glued it back together and keep it in the studio in her memory.
I've not had a studio cat since. I strongly suspect the experience would be much more like you'd see in this video.
We closed in September, took possession October, and I spent a good deal of the first winter tearing up carpet and building a studio: building a work table and ware rack, bringing in a wheel and mounting the extruder and slab roller. I bought a used electric kiln, eventually a used pug mill, covered walls with wipeable paneling or fireproof hardibacker.
By the next summer, I was happily throwing and bisquing at home, and Denise was cutting and soaking buckets of plant materials for paper in the carport, cooking down and blending pulp on the back porch.
Where we discovered that the property already had a tenant: a burly grey-and-white cat that seemed to be living under the pottery shed. She was skittish and wild, but Denise talked to her in a calming voice, just sitting nearby and working, all summer. It got so she'd almost get close enough to pet, before veering off again.
Came one rainy fall evening. I'd gone on a grocery run, and since the studio door opens on the kitchen, I was bringing in the bags through that way when big grey-and-white kitty strolled in between my legs, looked around at the dry, warm space and said, Okay, this is good. I can live with this.
We named her Pearl, partly after a cat from my childhood, partly for the perfect white tip on her otherwise grey tail. She lived in the studio for a couple of weeks, while we litter-box trained her and then was introduced to the rest of the cats and the rest of the house. She rapidly rose to the top of the feline hierarchy, and lived out the rest of her days a pampered indoor cat.
There's hardly a trace of her in the studio anymore, except for this: a soup bowl with her paw print as she daintily made her way across a ware board of newly thrown pots. We used it for years until another, more rambunctious cat knocked it off the table and broke it. I glued it back together and keep it in the studio in her memory.
I've not had a studio cat since. I strongly suspect the experience would be much more like you'd see in this video.