Inside Maya Lin’s Art and Architecture | Art21

I think art is wonderful

because it's everything you've ever known,

and everything you've ever done

somehow percolating up,

working with ideas that you might want to explore.

And then you can just wake up one morning

and know what you want to do.

This is a very unusual art project.

I got a phone call out of the blue.

It was from an art consultant 
in the city, wonderful woman.

And she said, "Congratulations, 
you've been selected

to make an art work for the Frey Foundation

of the city of Grand Rapids."

and I said, "Well, what's the site?"

And it was one little corner.

It was called the "Percent for Art Corner"

of sort of a very tough park, 
or what was left of a park.

There was a skating rink that 
was in bad need of a repair.

And I said, "I don't believe an art work,

one singular object is going to help resolve

sort of the urban situation

of what this park is and is not doing,

but if the Frey Foundation is at all interested

in having me come in, having 
the art act as a catalyst

to completely rework this park,

I would be extremely interested."

I think the idea of a skating rink

is something that just sort of piqued my fancy.

What I actually wanted to do

was take an idea of sculpture 
and grow it into a park.

I didn't realize I was going to have to work

as an architect as well,

because the city then required 
two or three buildings

to be part of the site.

A bandstand, a restroom facility,

I'll have put in all the lighting.

Yeah, it's not...

I wonder if you're gonna notice that.

That might be a good North Star.

<v Assistant>okay.</v>

<v ->Right?</v>

And so then we either go deep, deep blue.

Yeah, that works fine for the North Star,

because it's off-blue.

<v ->Okay.</v>

<v ->I'm really curious what this 
looks like with ice on it.

We're soon gonna find out, with ice.

I sort of called this one 
the three stages of water:

solid, liquid, and gas.

So the liquid is a water fountain

that's three feet above you.

A circle covered with water in 
it flows off the front edge.

The mist or the gas fountain

is a ring of mist that'll come up,

and you could almost walk into the mist.

And of course, the ice is the ice skating rink.

The genesis started with water.

Grand Rapids actually took the 
rapids out of the river there

for flooding reasons.

And I started to play with the idea

of bringing it back a little bit.

The starting of the rings, the terraced rings,

started as, if you took a drop of water

in the center of the pool, and let them come out,

and then it spun into an idea

of as much about astronomy and about the stars,

so it's almost like pulling 
the stars into a pool of water.

It's sort of a reflection of 
the night sky in the pool.

(group chuckling and chattering)

<v ->All right, this is it. 
Now close your eyes.

<v ->Wow. This is not bad.</v>

(chattering)
Just be careful, Sarah.

Wow.
(gentle music)

It's a piece that marks a very set point in time

and connects it back to a 
set occurrence in nature.

(ice skater yells)

It's up and running.

The skating rink's actually up first,

and I'll go back in to fine-tune 
the landscaping, the trees.

My sculptures deal with 
naturally occurring phenomena,

and they are embedded and very closely aligned

with geology and landscape 
and natural earth formations.

It's all about a play back and forth

between inside works and outside works,

all trying to capture the landscape.

This is a group of atlases.

I bought about ten old atlases.

And I started making these 
landscapes, craters, in them.

So this one sort of has a double crater.

So you go past through the first crater,

and there's a little island, 
and you open it to the island,

and I'll make it more complex 
island geography here,

which is what's going on.

So much of my artwork is very 
large-scale outdoor works

that I like to retreat into the studio

and make a lot of the work myself.

And the trouble is the outdoor works

and the architecture tends to take up all my time,

so I find it very hard, as a struggle,

to be able to come back here and do this.

This is like the first work 
I've done in a little while.

It's terrible.

(cat meows)

We have gone through a period 
in art and architecture,

I think, modernity, industrialization,

which allowed for specialization.

There are very few architects 
who are also solidly,

have a gallery.

Part of me is an artist.

The other part of me builds architecture.

I'm not at all wanting to have a large practice.

I don't want to practice architecture.

I love building a few buildings.

So I have to be very careful what I take on.

I've done some works that are extremely public

and extremely well-known,

and I think had I not done the Vietnam Memorial

and come out with the body of 
work that since has come out,

I would have been able to be called an artist

about five years sooner.

But because I had done the Vietnam Memorial,

it was like, "Oh, you make monuments,"

whatever that means.

I mean, look at that one, the biggest one.

Dee-dee-dee-dee.

Dee-dee-dee.

I don't think I woke up one day and said,

"Oh, I'm going to be an artist 
on some days and an arch..."

It was more I couldn't choose between the two,

nor did I choose to blend them.

You might be able to do this better than me.

It's taken me a body of work 
to see how I am developing.

<v Acquaintance>I don't think so.</v>

<v ->No, it's solid, it's totally solid.</v>

It's been on for an hour now.

It's kind of surreal.

I really want to make this piece.

I'm actually playing with 
the idea of taking this idea

and creating a work out of recycled rubber,

calling it "Playground."

It will be twice as big

as the untitled topographic landscape,

and kids can play on it.