Carolina QuotesIt’s a bit unusual, as you said, to be working between the architecture, the art, and what I would say is a synthesis, the memorials—they’re problem solving, but it’s very symbolic. You get this triangle; I need to be balanced with those three. They’re all equally a part of who I am. I love how different they are, and yet they’re coming out the same thing, whatever it is.
Maya Lin Connected to the Carolinas
Source
"Artists at Work: Maya Lin" in Interview Magazine (10 August 2017)
- form
- interview
- year
- 2017
Cite this record
“It’s a bit unusual, as you said, to be working between the a…” Maya Lin. Carolina Quotes, record CQ-C379209103. https://carolinaquotes.com/quote/c379209103
More from Maya Lin
I tend to make models of a lot of my pieces. I end up making models, and the models get bigger, and bigger, and bigger. I call it the Christmas tree syndrome. You buy a Christmas tree outdoors, you think it’s too small, then you bring it inside and you have to lop two feet off because it’s way too big. If you’re working out of doors, you have to test actual scale, with a paper cutout, with a maquette at full scale, because you need it to feel intimate like a dining table. You have to scale it up just enough so that it will still feel intimate — so it won’t jump to monumental in scale. It has to be bigger than it would be inside because then it would get dwarfed. You can only do that by actually mocking it up.
I think art is personal to each artist, and so to me it is what my art always has been about. But that’s my choice as an artist. I don’t believe art necessarily has to be any one thing. In fact, if we all felt inclined to have to do that, I think it would be a disaster for art.
I had been blessed that racism had never really entered into my realm. I get to Denmark and ironically I think they thought I was a Greenlander at times. An eskimo. Because if I get a suntan, I change through different races. Some people think I'm American Indian. When I'm in Mexico, I blend.