My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
Maya LinRead
All my work is much more peaceful than I am.
Interpretation
The artist's creations often reflect a serenity that contrasts with their personal struggles.
Maya Lin suggests that her artistic work embodies tranquility and calmness, despite her own internal conflicts and emotional turbulence. This quote reflects the idea that the process of creation can serve as an escape or a means of expressing a deeper peace that the artist is striving for, highlighting the role of art as a refuge and a way to communicate feelings that may not be expressed otherwise.
In practice
During an art exhibit, this quote could be used to emphasize the connection between an artist's emotions and their work.
My parents are both college professors, and it made me want to question authority, standards and traditions.
I 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.
The audience will find the artist who matches their interests. If you're not being true to yourself, your audience can't find you, because there's a wall up between who you are and who they're seeing.
In everything that can be called art there is a quality of redemption.
It is my art. I am better at it than I ever was. And I will do it as long as I can. When you reach a certain age you can slough off what is unnecessary and concentrate on what is. And why not?
I've been told, and I think I recognize it, that there's a cinematic quality to my writing, with a sense of image and place and scene - and, some would say, my tendency to finish my books the way Hollywood finishes its films.
I didn't know Kurt Cobain or Amy Winehouse, but I was affected by both of their deaths because I admired their work so much and mourned their youth and work they would never produce.
My only job is to write in such a way that the reader gets a new handle on humanity.
Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.