HP: Where did you get the idea for Earthwork?
KL: Mostly from my books. In 1976, I finished work on a series of seven books, each in an edition of seven, in the livre d'artiste tradition, wherein I explored roles and relationships, specifically, relationships rooted in the theme of opposites. A book without words, for example; a book that couldn't be opened; books whose message was in, not on, the paper. With Earthwork, I wanted to continue this study but I also
wanted to do something on a much larger scale than anything I had attempted in the past, and I wanted to include music, text, and image. So I chose the earth itself, and man.
HP: In terms of handmade paper, the work is huge. How long did it take to complete the project?
KL: In all, about eighteen months. I started with the panels---I call them Earthskins---nineteen in all, each one 31/2 feet wide by 71/2 feet high. These hang either in a straight line stretching into the gallery or wrap around the space so that one can be enveloped in a cave-like atmosphere. While the panels were drying I worked on the bamboo structures. There are five of them ranging in size from five feet by three feet
by two feet to three feet by two feet by eighteen inches. These are
constructed of split bamboo tied together with linen thread. I
constructed them as a three-dimensional drawing, adding a piece here and there until I felt it complete. These are displayed with red
clay placed directly on the floor underneath them with a light
casting a shadow from the bamboo structures onto the red clay; this
is related to the structure inside the Earthskin panels.
The final element in the work I call Occurrences, which are
twenty-one silkscreen printed images taken from the news media
during that eighteen month period of time, such as the contras being
trained in Honduras, the car bombing in Paris, the military build up
and unrest in South Africa, as well as images of children at play.
These are combined with slabs of paper and clay to form the
twenty-one 14" x 141/2", framed images. The music, sound,
and text tie it all together and repeat the themes explored in the
other elements.
HP: Why did you choose paper as the principal material for the
installation?
KL: In most of my work I have been concerned with what lies
beneath the surface or "skin." Paper can have a skin-like quality
and can represent the fragility of what visually appears to be
strong, sturdy, and forever lasting. Also, with paper I could build
up the layers or strata which are an important aspect of the
installation. Paper also readily accepts the marks, gashes, and
embossments one wants to put into and on the surface, as well as
being very accepting of color in the form of pigments and dyes or
clays and oxides.
HP: Describe the Earthskins.
KL: There are nineteen panels in all, representing skins of
the earth, which are lifted and hung in a line stretching
fifty-three feet into the gallery space. Each one is made up of wrinkles, folds, and fragments that are cracked, broken, torn, and
gashed; strata, if you like, both geological and human, which to me
mark the passage of time and events. One more day, one more scar.
The overall impression is one of strength, sturdiness. But
underneath...frailty, friableness, fragility. Skin of the earth,
skin of man. Both can take only so much!
HP: It sounds filled with despair.
KL: If you stop there, it is despairing. After all, the
tangible components of the Earthwork installation depict
weathered and worn skins, bamboo structures which represent the
bones of the earth, the earth's skeleton, if you will, and so on.
Even the music in the beginning, along with the texts, which were
gathered from newspaper headlines and articles over a
year-and-a-half period, expresses what a friend of mine called "the
ageless lament of chaos and suffering of man..."
But I didn't stop there. In the end, the music, sound, and
the spoken word, which gradually shift from headlines to children at
play, leave a sense of hope and peace.
HP: How were the music, sound, and text created?
KL: Music has been a part of my life forever. It is another
kind of language which I wanted to include in the Earthwork
installation, along with sound and text as the audible manifestation
of the themes echoed in the work. In 1978 I first began working
with the book format. These books are wordless. The page itself,
by its muteness, is meant to evoke language and the meanings
inherent in literature or poetry. The natural progression from that
silence was the combination of text, sound, and music.
In 1986 I met with Montreal composer Gaetan Essiambre and began an
eighteen month fruitful collaboration. Gaetan put together a series
of musical sketches using a computerized synthesizer. These
sketches were combined with my recordings of playground and city
sounds in Tokyo and Montreal, and wind and surf on Vancouver Island
and Lake Superior. The music begins as a low rumble and builds to
the sounds of war and chaos, and silence. Slowly the sounds of
music, flutes and an organ, and children at play begin and continue
with the text, and end leaving the listener with a sense of peace
and hope.
Throughout the tape we layered the texts, which came from the news
media. These are repeated in such a way as to catch only a word or
a phrase, thereby inferring rather than making a complete statement,
in other words to convey a microcosm of human concerns.
HP: Since the panels were the predominant feature of the
installation, can you give us some specific information on how they
were constructed.
KL: Each panel was built up of layers of pulp, one-third
abaca and two-thirds cotton. The surface layer of pulp contained up
to thirty percent red art clay which I added, in powder form,
directly to the pulp vat. I then added a fixative, Polymin P, a
high molecular weight, water-soluble polymer for papermaking, which
not only binds fillers such as clay and pigment to the fiber but
also increases the anchorage of water-repellent coatings on paper.
The resultant panels are very thick and dense with layers of pulp
and clay.
For example, the work titled Earthwork: Strata is composed of
five layers of pulp and clay with a layer of cheese cloth between
the fourth and top layer, which gives the impression of a structure
underneath, the texture suggesting skin pulled over the surface of
rock and ground. I used red iron oxide and graphite as well as the
red art clay to color the piece, further suggesting the earth
itself. In this work I have added neon light, which glows from
under the surface and washes out into the center panel to become
symbolic of earth and fire.
In the piece River, the river is a section that is gouged out;
here I added the red art clay in dry form, which immediately
absorbed the water from the pulp surrounding it. When dry it
cracked like a river bed.
HP: Where did you learn papermaking?
KL: At Twinrocker in Indiana and the Lessebo Mill in Sweden,
but mostly by experimenting in my own studio. Some things work and
some don't!
HP: What are your current projects?
KL: More handmade paper. I've just completed a work titled
Archeological Referents, again about opposites, about roles
and relationships. In this case, columns which resemble bones
constructed from cotton, abaca, and plaster. Again something which
should represent strength but is in fact a mere shell. In this work
I am also working with the photographic image, this time in the form
of a slide projection that falls on the wall and onto one of the
columns, a play on illusion and reality.
From this work I am again planning to work with sound, music, and
video as part of reconstructed objects, a table and chair cut in
half, old window frames framing a video, and music and text being
emitted from boxes.

‍