Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation

Educational and Family Resource

A Shift in the Stream

Nationally renowned artist, sculptor and architect Maya Lin is best known for her design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. In 1995, the Principal Financial Group invited  her to create a work of art for a new building on its corporate campus. That work was A Shift in the Stream, which introduces trickles of water down the two-story-high glass walls of the building’s lobby. The water collects in a trench behind a long, jagged opening, like a running crack, at the bottom of the lobby wall. A Shift in the Stream refers to the shift from the work environment to a reflective, personal space evoked by running water.

(Revised Overview from York: The Century History Company, 1903, Vol. IV, pp. 153-154).

Discussion Questions

• How would you describe this work to someone who could not see it? Try to go into as much detail as possible.
• What do you find pleasing about this work? What do you find displeasing? If you could change any one thing about it, what would it be and why?
• How does the location of this work affect how you think or feel about it? Can you imagine it anywhere else? How would it look or 'feel' different in a different space? Try to be specific.
• The artist tells us that this piece is meant to suggests a shift from the work environment to a space of personal reflection. What other ideas might this work invoke?
• What is a "shift" that you have experienced in your own life? What other “shifts” do we encounter in our lives?

Literature

Amy Stone. Maya Lin. Chicago: Raintree, 2003

A thoughtful and insightful biography of the artist-architect.

Maya Ying Lin. Boundaries. New York: Simon and Schuster, 2000

Maya Lin’s first book is an eloquent visual/verbal sketchbook produced with the same inspiration and attention to detail as any of her other artworks. In it, sketches, photographs, workbook entries, and original designs are held together by a deeply personal text. It is itself a unique work of art.

Mary Malone. Maya Lin: Architect and Artist. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 1995.

Elementary through middle school audiences will gather new understandings from this introduction to Maya Lin.

Eve Bunting. The Wall. New York: Carrion Books, 1995

Elementary through middle school audiences will marvel at the watercolor illustrations of The Wall, designed by Maya Lin in this book. The author tells a moving story as a father and son visit this Memorial together. .

Internet Resources

Art Activities