My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
Maya LinRead
I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.
Interpretation
Art is about offering new perspectives on the world.
In this quote, Maya Lin emphasizes that the essence of art lies in its ability to challenge and expand the way individuals perceive their environment. By presenting alternative viewpoints, art encourages deeper reflection and appreciation of the world around us, transforming ordinary sights into profound experiences.
In practice
In a gallery opening where the artist discusses their work.
My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
How we are using up our home, how we are living and polluting the planet is frightening. It was evident when I was a child. It's more evident now.
Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.
A lot of my works deal with a passage, which is about time. I don't see anything that I do as a static object in space. It has to exist as a journey in time.
When I was building the Vietnam Memorial, I never once asked the veterans what it was like in the war, because from my point of view, you don't pry into other people's business.
I though about what death is, what a loss is. A sharp pain that lessens with time, but can never quite heal over. A scar. The idea occurred to me there on the site. Take a knife and cut open the earth, and with time the grass would heal it. As if you cut open the rock and polished it.
In film, you have to let go sometimes.
I think the way to be a writer is to experience things, certainly, and be open to things, but at some point to become dedicated to the craft of writing and to create a stable environment for that writing to occur in.
Poems not only demand patience, they demand a kind of surrender. You must give yourself up to them. This is the real food for a poet: other poems, not meat loaf.
Actors are always afraid of ending up like overcooked old soup over time. What's risky is that you don't realize this has happened, and you just get thick and boring. Going abroad was like getting a new pot to cook everything again. I was a rookie, a new self. And they were asking me, 'Who are you?'
She has form," he said to himself, as he walked away through the grove - "that cannot be denied to her; but has she got feeling? I am afraid not. In fact, she is like most artists; she is all style, without any sincerity. She would not sacrifice herself for others. She thinks merely of music, and everybody knows that arts are selfish. Still, it must be admitted that she has some beautiful notes in her voice. What a pity it is that they do not mean anything, or do any practical good.
Art is longing. You never arrive, but you keep going in the hope that you will.
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