I’ve always been pretty fixated on water. Maybe it’s because it exists in multiple states, and you can never understand it in nature as a fixed momen… - Maya Lin

I had been blessed that racism had never really entered into my realm. I get to Denmark and ironically I think they thought I was a Greenlander at times. An eskimo. Because if I get a suntan, I change through different races. Some people think I'm American Indian. When I'm in Mexico, I blend.

I had a simple impulse to cut into the earth. I imagine taking a knife and cutting into the earth, opening it up and the initial violence and pain that in time would heal. The grass would grow back, but the initial cut would remain a pure, flat surface in the earth with a polished mirrored surfaced, much like the surface on a geode when you cut it and polish the edge. The need for the names to be on the memorial would become the memorial. There was no need to embellish the design further. The people and their names would allow everyone to respond and remember. It would be an interface between our world and the quieter, darker, more peaceful world beyond.

I would hope that artists can offer a different viewpoint, a different way of seeing the exact same data points, but maybe, because we can think a little bit outside of the norm, we can offer a new way of looking at it.