My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
The process I go through in the art and the architecture, I actually want it to be almost childlike. Sometimes I think it's magical.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Maya Lin expresses a desire for her creative process to embody childlike wonder and simplicity, suggesting that art can be magical.
In this quote, Maya Lin emphasizes the importance of maintaining a sense of innocence and wonder in her artistic and architectural endeavors. By describing her process as 'almost childlike,' she highlights her belief that the most profound and imaginative works often stem from a sense of discovery and magic, akin to the way children perceive the world. This perspective invites both artists and audiences to embrace the joy and spontaneity that can come from a more unfiltered and imaginative approach to creativity.
Themes
In practice
Example use cases
In a discussion about the importance of creativity in education, this quote can inspire educators to encourage imaginative thinking in children.
More from Maya Lin
All quotes βI try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me.
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.
Similar quotes
Artists working for other artists is all about knowing, learning, unlearning, initiating long-term artistic dialogues, making connections, creating covens, and getting temporary shelter from the storm.
I like racing but food and pictures are more thrilling. I can't give them up. In racing you can be certain, to the last thousandth of a second, that someone is the best, but with a film or a recipe, there is no way of knowing how all the ingredients will work out in the end. The best can turn out to be awful and the worst can be fantastic. Cooking is like performing and performing like cooking.
I don't think anything I've written has been done in under six or eight drafts. Usually it takes me a few years to write a book. 'World's Fair' was an exception. It seemed to be a particularly fluent book as it came. I did it in seven months. I think what happened in that case is that God gave me a bonus book.
You know, young actors say all the time, 'Should I use my own life experience?' And my response is, 'What choice do you have?'
It was an accident, although I've been involved in some kind of theatrical function or other since I was a child - in school, music, athletics. To me, acting is the most logical way for people's neuroses to manifest themselves, in this great need we all have to express ourselves. To my way of thinking, an actor's course is set even before he's out of the cradle.
There are places where writing is acting and acting is writing. I'm not so interested in the divisions. I'm interested in the way things cross over.