Mary Corse, Untitled (Black Earth Series), 1978

Mary Corse: I had been doing white paintings for, what, ten years now or something, all white, and very ethereal. And I guess, I was discovering that, hey, we have a material reality also! So I found myself obsessed with the idea of—coming from the white light painting—then to do black earth.

Kim Conaty: As Corse became more interested in working with clay and creating these earth slabs, she designed and built her own kiln in front of her studio. A place where she could fire the tiles themselves, which then she would glaze in her studio and hang like paintings on the wall.

Mary Corse: I wanted to mold it off the rock. I wanted it to be made out of clay, made out of earth. Mold it off the earth. So I went hiking around the Malibu Mountains, it's surprising how hard it is to find a rock that's not too bumpy, you know? But I did. So I found a friend who would go with me, and we took all this equipment up the mountain, and poured this big plaster mold. It was fun. Then we carried it down, got another friend to help us put it on the front of my car, on the top of the hood, tie it down, and drive it back to the studio.