Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Maya Lin: What's She Been Doing?



Maya Lin was a young student at Yale when she won the competition for the Viet Nam Memorial in 1981. She received lots of accolades. She was even the subject of an award-winning documentary.

Hard to believe, but it's been 31 years since Lin, as an undergraduate, created the memorial. She is now a 52 year-old wife and mother.
What's she been designing since the Viet Nam Memorial? Short answer: "a lot!" Below are just a few of the highlights. (click on images to enlarge)

Besides the well-known Viet Nam Memorial, Lin created the Civil Rights Memorial in tribute to those who put their courage (and lives)  up for what they believed.

Lin also designed the wonderful timepiece at the Penn Station's ceiling in New York City titled "Eclipsed Time."

Over the years, Lin has created more and more environmental art. Sometimes her creations involved changing the landscape such as "Storm King Wave Field" for  the Storm King Art Center, New York, which had been an open gravel pit.


Lin not only formed outdoors environmental art, but also a traveling museum exhibit titled, "Systematic Landscapes," tracing the wave lengths of the ocean and topography of Earth in undulating shapes.  Quoting from "Boundaries," her autobiographical book, "My affinity has always been toward sculpting the earth. This impulse has shaped my entire body of work."

Today, Lin's latest oeuvre is titled, "What is Missing?" The subject is conservation about those beings who are at risk of extinction.  There's a website http://whatismissing.net/#/home , (maybe slow to load, but very well done)

 a traveling exhibit,

a sculpture at the California Academy of Sciences titled, "Listening Cone," which houses a 20-miute video,

And that, Dear Reader,  is a brief look at what Maya Lin has been doing over these 31 years. Pretty impressive, yes?



13 comments:

  1. This was wonderful. Thanks for sharing. It's great to know she didn't peak at 21!

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  2. Thanks for showing her evolution as an artist. I can imagine that from student to mother probably had some influence, too. Lucy

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  3. Does fatherhood influence design principles as well?

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    1. Dear Anon: My opinion is that all of life's transitions influence and inform art. R.

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  4. She's amazing. I love the Storm King Wave Field. And the website. I could spend days roaming around that. sz

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  5. Really enjoyed this blog!

    Jean

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  6. R--why is it only with women that these particular transitions are mentioned? In the many blogs featuring men, I do not remember mention of fatherhood or husbandhood "status". Seems odd, don't you know.

    spop

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  7. Hi: She also did the Confluence Project at 7 sites along the
    Columbia River for the Lewis and Clark commemoration. http://www.arcspace.com/architects/lin/confluence/confluence.html

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    1. Dear Anon: I looked at the site. It's very interesting. Thanks for pointing it out to me!

      I'd personally like to see it and then write a blog specifically about the her concept. (So much of Lin's work really requires reading about her thoughts and reasons behind her concepts.)R

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  8. Wife, mother and student can happen simultaneously, and often does. So lets go for clarity. She is now a 52 year old professional.

    djon

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  9. She does beautiful work. FRan

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  10. I remember when she was interviewed when the memorial was revealed. I can't believe it's been 31 years. She's amazing. Kate

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  11. thank you so mmcuh cause idc.

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