The Life and Art of Maya Lin 

Often times we ask ourselves how we manage to get everything done and keep our sanity. Maya Lin is a wonderful example of how to get things done right, both in her work and her personal life. She is a mother, artist, architect, and sculptor with one incredible goal. Lin hopes to use her art as a way to provoke meaningful thoughts and questions in the people around her. Lin wants to provide a safe place for thought without dictating what to think about.

She has created architecture, memorials, and many works of art that are successful in achieving this goal.

Lin, born in 1959, and raised in Athens, Ohio, grew up in a household of literature and art. Lin’s mother, Julia Chang Lin, was a poet who worked at Ohio University in the English Department. Henry Huan Lin, Lin’s father, was a ceramist and chair of the fine arts department at the same university(“Maya Lin Biography.”). Lin says her father’s “aesthetic sensibility ran throughout our lives” while discussing an upcoming project in 2006.

With art and literature surrounding her childhood, Lin chose to study at Yale. Lin follows in the footsteps of Frank Gehry, continuing her mission to blend architecture and sculpture(Chapter One, Page 8, Textbook).

Lin wrote, “Each of my works originates from a simple desire to make people aware of their surroundings, not just the physical world but also the psychological world we live in. I create places in which to think, without trying to dictate what to think.

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”[Maya Lin, Boundaries (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2000)]. Lin did a wonderful job of this in every work of art she created, but especially in Where the Water Flowed(10/29/2013), Colorado River(2009), Where the Land Meets the Sea(2008), The Women’s Table(1993), and in Vietnam Veterans Memorial(1982).

Lin’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial is one of her first and most well known places for thought. The focal point of the Memorial is a wedge cut out of the ground which has been filled in with black granite that was inscribed with 58,000 names of the lost, deceased, and captured soldiers during the War of Vietnam. These inscribed names display implied lines, actual texture, and repetition. The wedge that was cut out of the ground can be described as geometric shape. The achromatic color allows for the memorial to easily be read by visitors(Maya Lin Studio).

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial created a place for people to sit and mourne, remember, or celebrate the veterans of the Vietnam War. The granite creates a mirror-like wall that allows the viewer to see themselves in the wall of names. As you stand and view the memorial, you picture yourself as a peice of the art. The artwork provokes questions and thoughts in the viewer of the missing soldiers, the families of the deceased, and the forgotten souls inscribed on the wall. Lin is a special young woman that has created many wonderful works of art and is well on her way to a road of success and remembrance. Lin is leaving a handprint on this world that will be present for years to come.