Issue link: http://papercitymagazine.uberflip.com/i/1137964
heat. Much comes down to trial and error: A lot of pottery gets tossed, but others are happy mistakes that become bestsellers. In the front room of Schneider's studio near the Dallas Design District, dozens of glazed lamps are organized on shelves according to color, waiting to be wired and finished with bases and shades. Schneider pulls a gourd- shaped vessel with bands of artfully dripped green-blue glaze from a shelf and cradles it in his hand. "The first one I did was actually a glazing error," he explains. "The kiln over- fired, and the glaze ran and dripped. Everyone loved how it came out, so I experimented with making others using different glazes." His banded, drip-glaze lamps are now some of his most popular, but they're also his most difficult. Achieving consistent results is challenging. "Going in, you have to be comfortable that a lot of it's not going to turn out right," he says. "But for me, that's part of the fun of it. I'll try something, take notes on how I did it, see the results, then correct and try again." Schneider also creates textures and patterns with unexpected objects, such as discarded baseball netting he found on the ball field at Rhodes College. That same piece of netting is regularly pressed into service more than a decade later. The snakeskin- like surface of his gleaming Dappled lamps is achieved with a paint brush dipped in gold or platinum glaze, and dotted along the vessel before firing. Custom orders for residential and hospitality projects make up the bulk of his workload these days, and the process often takes months to coordinate lamp colors with a designer's wall paint and fabric samples. Schneider relishes such collaborations, and the art of creation never gets old. "The whole process — starting with clay, adding glaze, firing to 2,300 degrees — is still exciting," he says. "The firing takes all day, so last night, even, I couldn't wait to open up the kiln the next morning to see how things turned out." Paul Schneider with one of his lamps Ceramic lamps waiting to be glazed FREE parking & admission | open to the public | visit DallasCityofLearning.org for more information JULY 13, 11AM-3PM UP! TURN Discovery Faire LIBRARY at J. Erik Jonsson Central 1515 Young Street, Dallas