. . . subLiminality . . .

Okay, so my previous blog entry was a bit heavy. But I believe wholeheartedly that 'good' art and true 'artists' provoke us to take a serious look at ourselves and the culture around us more honestly...

But ultimately for Lin, it is her work that speaks the loudest. I have been reading about the Confluence Project in which Lin has been designing and installing sculptural works along the Columbia River that runs between Oregon and Washington State. What's fascinating is how Ms. Lin continues to live into previous observations she's made about herself and her works. She writes in Boundaries:

I feel I exist on the boundaries. Somewhere between science and art, art and architecture, public and private, east and west. I am always trying to find a balance between these opposing forces, finding the place where opposites meet.

water out of stone
glass that flows like water
the fluidity of a rock
stopping time

existing not on either side but on the line that divides and that line takes on a dimensionality, it takes on a sense of place and shape.

And now, since 2000, she's been working on the Confluence Project. A series that literally exists on a body of water that is a boundary. I have been considering the reality of life on the boundaries for quite some time. The so-called 'inhabitants' of the fringes of culture or the 'hinterland-ers' seem to have a deeper sense of the truth of things. Not to imply that they have it all figured out, but that there is a sense of the profundity and the paradoxical nature of reality that those who risk life on the fringes seem to be more than happy to embrace. There is a playfulness and freedom in the 'in-between' places...the boundaries.

I've been simultaneously reading Mark C. Taylor's book Erring in which he writes regarding this 'liminal' type of existence (you know, the kind where traditional hierarchies are turned upside down and what he calls 'carnivalesque play' inverts the inherited 'values and established meanings'):

Such a body is not merely found along the boundary; it is actually a boundary or margin.

In her own 'quiet' and beautifully strong way, Maya Lin is participating in the play of inversion. It was a group of Pacific Northwest Native American tribes along with some civic leaders who invited her to work on the Confluence Project in order to 'rethink' the commemorating of the famous Lewis and Clark expeditions. Talk about turning hierarchies upside down!!! It's heroic and courageous...

My return to landscape, inspired by Lin's work (I would also include Andy Goldsworthy's work as well) is about the 'thing' that first inspired a sense of awe...the earth that I live on. I'm not sure where this is leading, but I'm delighted to begin reconsidering the possibilities...well, maybe more scared than delighted...but then again, what is the difference really?