Maya Lin Artist and Architect

Maya’s Life Maya was born in Ohio in 1960 to Chinese Immigrants. She received a Bachelor of Arts in 1981 from Yale. In 1986, she received a Masters of Architecture, also from Yale. She was awarded Honorary doctorates from Harvard, Williams College and Smith College. Brn in

Maya’s Times In 1981, in her senior year at Yale, Maya won a public competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. In 1989, she was invited to design the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. In 1993, she designed the Women’s Table at Yale University.

Maya’s Accomplishments In 2000, Maya published her first book Boundaries. In 1996, a documentary about her work, Maya Lin: A Strong and Clear Vision won the Academy Award For Best Documentary. In 2003, Maya served on the selection jury of the World Trade Center Site Memorial Competition. In 2005, Maya was elected to The American Academy of Arts and Letters. Also in 2005, she was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame.

Maya’s Words “The process I go through in art and architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike.” “The only thing that mattered [in my family] was what you were to do in life, and it wasn't about money. It was about teaching or learning.” “You should be having more fun in…school. You should be exploring things because you want to explore them and learning because you love learning…” “In all my work I have tried to create works that present you with information allowing you the chance to come to your own conclusions; they ask you to think.”

Maya’s Work Maya has maintained a careful balance between art and architecture throughout her career, creating a remarkable body of work that includes large-scale site-specific installations, intimate artworks, architectural works and memorials.

Maya’s Inspiration Both landscape and the environment have greatly influenced and inspired Maya throughout her career and can be seen in all of her works.

Maya’s Memorials The Vietnam Veterans Memorial In 1981, Maya won an open competition for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, beating out over 1,400 other applicants. The black-cut masonry wall had the names of 58,253 fallen soldiers carved into its face. The wall is granite and V-shaped, with one side pointing to the Lincoln Memorial and the other to the Washington Monument in Washington D.C. Maya’s conception was to create an opening or wound in the earth to symbolize the gravity of the loss of the soldiers. The design was controversial because it was unconventional and non-traditional.

Maya’s Memorials The Civil Rights Memorial The Civil Rights Memorial is a stone water table that intertwines historical events of the civil rights era with the names of the people who were killed during that time. The water table is made of black granite, inscribed with historical events from 1954 to 1968. The table is accompanied by a 10 foot high water wall, inscribed with a quote by Martin Luther King Jr., “We are not satisfied and we will not be satisfied ‘until justice rolls down like and water and righteousness like a mighty stream.”

Maya’s Installations Systematic Landscapes This exhibition showed how Maya continues to explore landscape as both form and content.

Maya’s Installations Storm King Wave Field The Wavefield encompasses an eleven-acre site, with the earthwork covering four acres at the Storm King Art Center. The Wavefield is comprised of seven rows of undulating, rolling waves of earth and grass. The waves range in height from ten to fifteen feet.

Maya’s Architecture The Riggio-Lynch Chapel The Chapel was designed for the Children’s Defense Fund. The heart of the design of the Chapel is the abstracted image of a boat or ark.

Maya’s Architecture The Box-House This 4,000 square foot residence evolved out of a desire to create the simplest of forms - a wooden box. The house is in essence a box within a box.

MAYA’S BIG IDEA: IDENTITY!

IDENTITY What is identity? What type of situations impact identity? How would you define a person’s identity? What type of situations impact identity? What symbols are used in defining identity? What types of art making are good for creating works about identity?

Maya on Identity All of Maya’s works possess undercurrents “As the child of immigrants you have that sense of, Where are you? Where’s home? And trying to make a home…” All of Maya’s works possess undercurrents of personal associations and she often uses her identity as a focal point. “I think what makes art valuable is: it is about an individual expressing what they think is a part of them, and variety and difference and clashes is what makes art valuable, that there is no one defining idea of what art is or what it should do. And that's what makes it art, that it has no rules, that it's so individualized in that sense.”

Maya’s Other Big Ideas Consumption Ecology Structures Memory Place Time Stories

Bibliography http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/lin/index.html http://www.achievement.org/autodoc/page/lin0pro-1 www.Mayalin.com http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maya_Lin http://www.preview-art.com/previews/04-2006/bg/Henry-LinCaspianW.jpg http://nmaa-ryder.si.edu/collections/clarice_smith/images/maya_lin.jpg http://www.latimes.com/media/photo/2008-03/37187066.jpg http://www.scanews.com/spot/2003/january/s645/caf/lin_photo.jpg http://www.arcspace.com/architects/lin/sys_landscapes/sys_landscapes.html http://www.photoshelter.com/c/warcholphotography/gallery-show/G00007xOBMiYIVzk/ http://www.earlywomenmasters.net/lin/