My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
Maya LinRead
I probably spent the first 20 years of my life wanting to be as American as possible. Through my 20s, and into my 30s, I began to become aware of how so much of my art and architecture has a decidedly Eastern character.
Interpretation
What this quote means
The quote reflects a journey of self-discovery and understanding one's cultural identity in relation to art.
Maya Lin expresses a realization that her early aspiration to conform to American ideals overshadowed her inherent Eastern influences in her artistic work. As she matured, she recognized the importance of her heritage and how it uniquely shaped her perspective in art and architecture, highlighting the significance of cultural identity in creative expression.
Themes
IdentityArtCultureSelf-DiscoveryHeritage
In practice
Example use cases
This quote can be used during an art seminar to discuss cultural influences in creativity.
More from Maya Lin
All quotes βI try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.
Maya LinRead
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.
Maya LinRead
Sometimes you have to stop thinking. Sometimes you shut down completely. I think that's true in any creative field.
Maya LinRead
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.
Maya LinRead
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.
Maya LinRead
Similar quotes
I thought I could capture the stories of the city on paper. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city. Horror stories you see. I tell you I didn't have to look far for material. Everywhere I looked, there were stories hidden there in the dark corners. . . . I wrote and still there were more. . . . No one would publish them. 'Too horrible,' they said. 'Sick mind,' they said. I thought I could write about the horrors of the city but the horror is too big and it goes on forever.
Grant MorrisonRead
On certain occasions art can shake very ordinary spirits, and whole worlds can be revealed by its clumsiest interpreters.
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Verses are not, as people think, feelings (those one has early enough) -- they are experiences. For the sake of a verse one must see many cities, men, and things, one must know the animals feel how birds fly, and know the gesture with which the little flowers open in the morning.
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The men resent a woman getting any honour in what they consider is essentially their field. Men painters mostly despise women painters. So I have decided to stop squirming, to throw any honour in with Canada and women.
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It is my dream to create an art which is filled with balance, purity and calmness, freed from a subject matter that is disconcerting or too attention-seeking. In my paintings, I wish to create a spiritual remedy, similar to a comfortable armchair which provides rest from physical expectation for the spiritually working, the businessman as well as the artist.
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I took a straight picture that made me look like a thirty-year-old Italian who'd kill anybody who said something against his mother.
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