Maya Lin

In 1981 at the age of 21 Lin, an undergraduate, won a public design  competittion for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The memorial is in Washington D.C. and honors the U.S. armed forces who fought and died in the Vietnam war. The memorial is 246 feet and 9 inches long. It is "V" shaped and sunk into the earth to symbolize the the gravity of the deaths. She also designed the Civil Rights Memorial in Montgomery, Alabama. She is known well for her architecture and lanscapes. She also loves art and could'nt choose between the two. In 2009 she did a series of three installations called "Wave Fields". The first field was done in Michigan on 11 acres. She studied wave patterns and sculpted them from the earth and planted grass over them. You can walk across them and hide in between the waves. Her work was all about the patterns of the earth. It is never flat or straight. It always bends and shifts. She has made these maps of the continents out of cardboard. The edges are cut at different hieghts to show mountains, valleys, and rock formations.