"I saw the Vietnam Veterans Memorial not as an object placed into the earth but as a cut in the earth that has then been polished, like a geode. Interest in the land and concern about how we are polluting the air and water of the planet are what make me want to travel back in geologic time-to witness the shaping of the earth before man." ~ Maya Lin, architect of the Civil Rights and Vietnam Veteran's Memorials Smithsonian Magazine (All links open in new windows) The Virtual Wall: A Vietnam Veterans Memorial Tour (see also Vietnam Veteran's Memorial and Maya Lin (林璎) Bio at Wikipedia) The Virtual Wall offers a unique experience for each visitor. The site includes close-up photos, slides, and virtual reality experiences of actually touching and reading the wall. Also includes veteran profiles, remembrances, reunion postings, name rubbings, custom reports, and more... According to MilitaryCity, "Maya Lin, the designer, conceived her design as creating a park within a park — a quiet protected place that was unto itself yet harmonized with the overall plan of Constitution Gardens. To achieve that effect, she chose polished black granite for the walls. Its mirror-like surface reflects the images of the surrounding trees, lawns and monuments. The walls point to the Washington Monument and Lincoln Memorial, thus bringing the Memorial into the historical context of our country. The names are inscribed in the chronological order of the date of casualty, showing the war as a series of individual sacrifices and giving each name a special place in history." Thoughts by Maya Lin on the Vietnam Memorial... "The Vietnam memorial is a place where something happens within the viewer. It's like reading a book. I purposely had the names etched ragged right on each panel to look like a page from a book," Lin said. "I also wanted remembering the past relevant to the present. Some people wanted me to put the names in alphabetical order. I wanted them in chronological order so that a veteran could find his time within the panel. It's like a thread of life." MAYA LIN STUDIO WEBSITE Maya Lin's Homepage, GOTTA SEE, Fantastic !!!!!!! The Architecture of Nature A vibrant and highly-imaginative talk by Maya Lin (Video & Slide Show): discusses her modernism and integration of old and new, from landscape earthworks and country chapels to small, urban apartments, and probing questions like "What happens when you bring a hill inside?" "Lin’s work has always hovered at the intersection of art, nature and architecture. Watch as artist Maya Lin discusses her works of art and impressive career." (from artbabble.org) Installation of Lin's "Bodies of Water" (2009) Storm King Art Center Biography of Maya Lin (PBS, Art in the 21st Century) "Born in 1959 in Athens, Ohio, Maya Lin catapulted into the public eye when, as a senior at Yale University, she submitted the winning design in a national competition for a Vietnam Veterans Memorial to be built in Washington, D.C. She was trained as an artist and architect, and her sculptures, parks, monuments, and architectural projects are linked by her ideal of making a place for individuals within the landscape. Lin, a Chinese-American, came from a cultivated and artistic home. Her father was the dean of fine arts at Ohio University; her mother is a professor of literature at Ohio University. "As the child of immigrants you have that sense of, Where are you? Where's home? And trying to make a home," remarks Lin. She draws inspiration for her sculpture and architecture from culturally diverse sources, including Japanese gardens, Hopewell Indian earthen mounds, and works by American earthworks artists of the 1960s and 1970s." Includes photos of Selected Works by Maya Lin: Topographical Landscape Avalanche Vietnam Veteran's Memorial Wave Field Rock Field Maya Lin's Peace Chapel "The Peace Chapel is an environmental landscape site designed by architect Maya Lin. It occupies a 14-acre site within the 170-acre Baker-Henry Nature Preserve. Located near the Juniata College campus, the Peace Chapel provides a contemplative setting within the rolling hills of central Pennsylvania." "Designed and constructed in 1988-1989, the Peace Chapel consists of two sites. The larger site is defined by a 40-foot circle of rough granite stones that line a shallow well at the top of a hill. A series of smoothly polished granite steps lead from the footpath up to the circle of stones. The smaller site occupies the top of a slightly higher neighboring hill. This smaller site consists of a 4-food diameter smooth granite disk set within the forest that blankets the hill. From the disk one can peer through the trees to the distant hill and view the larger circle of stones." Design for a Living World Smithsonian Exhibition Materials Downloadable oversize images of works by Maya Lin at the Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum, Smithsonian. Above: The wood used for Lin's bench came from FSC-certified land managed by The Nature Conservancy. Photo: Dan Whipps Art & Ecology: Maya Lin Maya Lin designs Arts Plaza for UCI The heart of the project, says Lin, is the drawing table. Many of her designs, notably the Vietnam memorial, feature a large, flat stone surface inscribed with text that visitors can trace with their fingers. For the Arts Plaza, she replaced text with "a simple line drawing that takes its shape as a bubbling line of water on the surface." "You may think you actually see the water drawing a line," Lin said. 'Text has been reduced to the mark of the human hand, so you realize, 'This is a school of the arts.'" Maya Lin — In the Factory Video Interview, Ordinary Questions, Amazing Answers. Maya Lin's "present tense of space," offered by artbabble.org, contributed by the Indianapolis Museum of Art. Maya Lin's Systematic Landscapes An array of fascinating photos from a 2006 Exhibition at Arcspace, and much to read and learn from. Includes (above): A 2x4 Landscape "composed of more than fifty thousand vertical two-by-four boards placed in a configuration minutely detailed in models and drawings" and a view along a boardwalk over restored wetlands, part of six monumental projects by Lin along the Columbia River in Oregon and Washington — read more at the Confluence Project website. Maya Lin's Bird Blind, Confluence Project (Oregon) "When you enter the restored forest ecosystem at Sandy River Delta, you'll encounter an elliptical bird blind, which embodies Confluence Project's commitment to sustainability and ecologically aware artistry. Stroll up a gently curving 150-foot ramp to the bird blind, constructed of sustainably harvested, durable black locust wood. From this quiet spot, you can view birds and wildlife that inhabit the area today as you learn about the flora and fauna-some of which are now extinct, endangered or threatened species-that existed here 200 years ago. The artwork serves as a lasting reminder of the impact humans have had on the environment and a model for a new way to envision the connection between people and the natural world." 11 Minute Line by Maya Lin, from Arcspace.com "In 2004, Maya Lin did a major outdoor project, 11 Minute Line, a 1500-foot long earth drawing. The first installation made outside the Park, this project truly utilized the assets and opportunities, time and space, available at Wanås. Comprising a serpentine line slipped into the ground in a field where the cows graze, 11 Minute Line is a very a playful piece – a simple drawing on which the visitors can walk." The Women's Table at Yale University "The simple granite blocks of Lin’s Women’s Table organically emerge from the pavement as both a lament and a tribute. A string of figures marks the number of female students at Yale each year since its founding in 1701. These numbers grow with time as they spiral out toward the table’s edge, swelling like the rings of water that bubble from the central spring and spill over on all sides." (More images at Google.) Maya Lin's Rallying Cry for the Environment Ecological Maya Lin slide show with article by Zuzanne Labarre, at Co.Design, here commenting on Lin's cast silver outline of the Colorado River (illustrated above): "The goal is to encourage us to contemplate the natural world and, more pointedly, to goad us into giving a damn. A winding vein of silver that represents the embattled Colorado River isn’t just a beautiful art object, it’s a rallying cry: Defend the earth, or one day way too soon, all that will be left of these landscapes will be the art they inspired--accidental memorials to another mindless slaughter." Maya Lin Sketch for the 9/11 Memorial Design Maya Lin design (left) & final design (right) for 9/11 Memorial (click images to zoom, opens in new windows) Maya Lin is not credited as the designer of the 9/11 memorial called Reflecting Absence, submitted by Michael Arad, but according to the "New York Times," an early sketch she drew for "The New York Times Magazine" had two pools and a grove of trees just as the winning design did. There has been no particular controversy regarding the resemblence of the accepted design and Lin's sketch (see above left), since Maya Lin was herself a juror on the 13-member design committee ("The 9/11 Memorial"). However the Times article by David W. Dunlap and Glenn Collins, published January 8, 2004, states, "Public attention has focused on the possibly persuasive role played by one juror, Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. She sketched out a proposal for the memorial in "The New York Times Magazine" of Sept. 8, 2002, that bears a superficial resemblance to Reflecting Absence." The finished design (above right) was revised by Peter Walker, a California landscape architect; and Daniel Libeskind, the site's lead architect, and "will add lusher landscaping" and create "an underground center to house artifacts," according to a Times update on January 14, 2004. A photo of a completed 911 Reflecting Absence pool at the Memorial in NYC (though the rest of the landscaping of the park itself still under construction), taken by earlywomenmasters.net on March 8, 2012 (click to zoom): Video & DVD: "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision" "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision is a portrait of the Chinese American artist/architect/sculptor who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial while an undergraduate student at Yale University. The film tells the gripping story behind the Vietnam Veterans Memorial and explores a decade of her creative work." Now on DVD, available from Amazon.com. Review of Freida Lee Mock's Oscar-winning documentary (The San Francisco Chronicle) "The film is absolutely riveting in its look back at the emotion-packed hearings about the memorial, the political controversies swirling around it, the grief- choked testimony of veterans, and the beautifully sad interaction of the endless thousands who find catharsis visiting the wall, reading the names, pondering death and seeing their reflections in its black surface. "The film makes it clear that Lin is a woman of almost ferocious conviction. In intimate moments she is shown working in her spartan New York City studio, cutting pieces for an architectural model, and breaking glass for a rooftop installation at an Ohio art museum." Other Reviews: The Washington Post (Linton Weeks) Maya Lin, NYC Photo by Enrico Ferorelli Maya Lin: Woman of Action A Celebration of Women, World HUB — Wheel of Women Leaders That Care: Maya Lin Tribute — On the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Maya Lin says of the Wall: "I really did mean people to cry." "Making the Memorial" by Maya Lin, New York Review of Books Excerpt: "On a personal level, I wanted to focus on the nature of accepting and coming to terms with a loved one's death. Simple as it may seem, I remember feeling that accepting a person's death is the first step in being able to overcome that loss. "I felt that as a culture we were extremely youth-oriented and not willing or able to accept death or dying as a part of life. The rites of mourning, which in more primitive and older cultures were very much a part of life, have been suppressed in our modern times. In the design of the memorial, a fundamental goal was to be honest about death, since we must accept that loss in order to begin to overcome it. The pain of the loss will always be there, it will always hurt, but we must acknowledge the death in order to move on." (November 2, 2000) Civil Rights Memorial When Center officials decided in 1988 to build a memorial to honor victims of the Civil Rights Movement, board member Eddie Ashworth thought immediately of Maya Lin. Seven years earlier, when she was a 21-year-old senior at Yale, Lin was chosen in a national competition to design the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. That memorial had proven to be a place of healing, a place where, as one veteran described, "the living and dead could meet." Maya Lin: National Women's History Month Honoree "'I work with the landscape, and I hope that the object and the land are equal partners.' "One of the rare few who has managed to forge a path in both art and architecture, Maya Lin is a sculptor, architect, designer, and craftswoman. Lin has consciously resisted divisions between architecture and design or fine and applied art."   Maya Lin discusses Her Last and Ongoing Memorial to a Dying Planet! Listen to the Interview and visit her website at What Is Missing? Interview with Maya Lin (NRDC - Natural Resources Defense Council ) Excerpt: Q: "Tell me about your involvement with the Presidio Advisory Council." A: "The Presidio is a former military base that is being turned into a National Park. So I said to the other members on the Council, "Let's think conceptually about that word 'defense.' Instead of defense in the sense of war, let's talk about defense of the planet — protecting it, and being its true steward." So my position was: Why not make the Presidio a case study — from the building end, from the transportation end, from the point of view of energy efficiency — and learn how to make it less harmful to the environment." (The Wave Field from New York Times Slideshow) Maya Lin's Landscape Sculpture, "The Wave Field" from FXB Foundation: "'The Wave Field' is located next to and completes the François-Xavier Bagnoud Building, which opened in 1993, and was underwritten by the family foundation named for François-Xavier Bagnoud, a former student in aerospace engineering at the university in Ann Arbor. "A pure earth sculpture, made entirely of soil covered with grass, 'The Wave Field' collapses the boundaries between nature and art, earth and water, object and pedestal. The sculpture, which took over two years to complete, is approximately 90 feet by 90 feet square. The waves, which rise from the natural ground plane to five or six feet high, make a subtle transition into the piece, blurring the distinction between the sculpture and the space in which it exists." Maya Lin describes "The Wave Field" as "...pure poetry. It is a very gentle space that exists on a very human scale. It is a sanctuary, yet it's playful, and with the changing shadows of the sun, it is completely transformed throughout the day. 'The Wave Field' expresses my desire to completely integrate a work with its site, revealing the connectedness of art to landscape, or landscape as art." Langston Hughes Library, Clinton, Tennessee "Thanks to Barnes and Noble Chair Len Riggio and his wife Louise, an exquisite library designed by Maya Lin was dedicated on March 19, 1999, to our great Black bard. "It includes the John Hope Franklin-Maya Angelou reading room, a Mrs. Rosa Parks sitting area, and a meeting room which can accommodate 75. Young people and all who come to Haley Farm for training and fellowship are able to conduct research; read about and meditate on great heroes, heroines, writers, and thinkers; and be exposed to the best quality children's literature by authors and illustrators of African descent and on Black experiences." Maya Lin Visionary 2012 "Ms. Lin is the fourth person to be honored by the New Museum in its Visionaries series, which was inaugurated in 2009 to honor “international thinkers in the fields of art, architecture, design and related disciplines of contemporary culture.” Other Architectural / Earth Works of Interest by Maya Lin... Museum for African Art (Interior), New York The Women's Table at Yale University New York University's Asian Pacific American Studies Institute MAYA LIN BOOKS (see also Stanford University's Maya Lin: Bibliography of Books and Periodicals) Systematic Landscapes by Maya Lin: "Utilizing the way in which scientists and computers see our world, drawing on images based on sonar views of the ocean floor, to aerial and satellite views of the land, I have started to create artworks that translate that technological view into sculptural forms." (Maya Lin) Maya Lin Boundaries: From Amazon.com review; "Understandably, Lin writes in greatest detail about the Vietnam memorial, a high-profile commission fraught with controversy because of its unusual form as well as the age, gender, and ethnicity of its American-born architect. But this engrossing, amply illustrated book also details the thinking and experimentation behind myriad other projects, including elemental sculptures, interiors, and furniture designed with an unusual degree of consideration for the user's needs." 224 pages (October 2000) Simon & Schuster; ISBN: 0684834170 Children's Books Maya Lin : Honoring Our Forgotten Heroes (Everyone Contributes) by Bob Italia. Abdo & Daughters,1993, ISBN: 1562392344. Maya Lin : Architect and Artist (People to Know) Enslow Publishers, Inc., January 1995, ISBN: 089490499X. The Story of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by David K. Wright. Chicago : Childrens Press, c1989. Other Books of Interest Earthworks and Beyond contemporary art in the landscape, by John Beardsley. Rev. ed. New York : Abbeville Press, 1989 (highly recommended) The Wall Images and Offerings from the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, conceived by Sal Lopes, Introduction by Michael Norman. New York : Collins, 1987. 128 p. To Heal a Nation: the Vietnam Veterans Memorial by Jan C. Scruggs and Joel L. Swerdlow. New York : Harper & Row, c1985. ANCIENT AND MODERN MAYA LIN Related at this site: Emily Dickinson's Nature Mysticism Antique Geometric Quilt Designs • Prehistoric Jomon Pottery ___ ___ ___ www.earlywomenmasters.net a non-profit, educational website