Maya Lin, Wavefield, 2009 - New Windsor, New York (June, 2022)
Background
Wavefield occupies an 11-acre site with the artwork itself spanning four acres. It is an Earthwork of seven rows of rolling waves made of earth and grass ranging in heights between 10 - 15 feet tall.
The artist, Maya Lin, came to prominence in 1981 when, as a 21 year old student with no professional experience, she won a blind competition to build the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC. She competed against more than 1,400 other entries. Submitted as an assignment for a college class, she triumphed over her professor’s submission, who also only gave her a B on the assignment. A deeply political and controversial development process had some loud detractors, but $8.4 million of private funding was raised to complete the project.
“My affinity has always been toward sculpting the earth.” - Maya Lin
The Vietnam Memorial is testament to this, two angular walls sharply cutting into the hill as they meet.
Wavefield is Maya Lin’s largest and final of a three part series of wave fields; The Wave Field in Ann Arbor, Michigan which is replicating a Stokes Wave pattern and Flutter in Miami, Florida which resembles gentle waves rolling across sand. Both of which are in more urban settings within plazas between buildings, while the space in Wavefield doesn’t have a building in site. Michigan’s small site and medium sized waves almost act as individualized comfy recliner seats for students and faculty, while Florida’s slightly larger site and small waves are simply traversed in unique ways by passersby as they move through it.
Wavefield is the largest, widest, and tallest. You can easily lose visual contact with the adjacent waves as you walk through them, replicating the feeling of being at sea. A much different experience than the original two. It sits in a valley of hills as well, somehow making the unnatural earthen waves feel very natural and fitting in the broader landscape.
Built on a former gravel pit, it is a reclamation project, that required collaboration with the EPA. Native grasses were planted to prevent eroison and soil compactions, while requiring minimal watering. Even the carbon footprint of the entire construction was calculated and offset by planting 260 trees. A 2 year process, from commissioning to opening the piece, was complicated by vegetation, drainage, and some woodchucks that decided the waves would make lovely homes.
Lin spoke of her fascination with transmutability, the quality of being changeable over time. The opposite of static. Definitely take a look at it in the winter. And how do you actually maintain it? From mowing to managing foot traffic, and recommending how visitors should interact with the waves. She also mentioned how she was influenced by Japanese aesthetics, how the architecture forms the frame in which you view the land.
Travel
Wavefield is located at the Storm King Art Center, one of the country’s premier outdoor sculpture parks, set on 500 acres of wide-open meadow and woodland in Mountainville, N.Y., about an hour’s drive north of Manhattan. It’s easiest to drive there, but you can also take Metro North from Grand Central to Beacon ($17.75 off peak one way) and then take a taxi to the park (~$30).
Tickets for Storm King cost are based on the number of people per car. For four people it would be $100. My brother is in the military, so we got a discount. Bike rentals are $30 a person. Bring your own food and drinks, don’t forget a picnic blanket and sun block.
It’s also not too far from Beacon, NY, which is across the Hudson river. This is a great town, with plenty of restaurants, bars, and shops, and is the home of DIA Beacon, which I’m told is a cool art museum (I’ve been meaning to go).
Experience
We visited on a Saturday at the end of June, 2022. We arrived mid morning (10 am) and left mid afternoon (3 pm). We swung by a Wegmans in Westchester county to pick up a picnic lunch, which we ate on one of the lawns underneath a shady tree. We liked the broad open space to look out upon while we lazed. It was not crowded, possibly due to the stifling heat, it peaked at almost 90 degrees that day. Wasn’t bad in the shade, and it was quite nice and breezy riding through the park as a bike gang. There are bathrooms and a gift shop available in the main building at the center of the park.
Mirror Fence is a fun interactive piece, that’s very good for creative social media posts. However, if you do care about the quality of photos, you should wipe and clean the key pickets you’ll use. I noticed that in my photos, and wish I had paid attention to that detail. There was also a surprise Richard Serra in the fields, and an odd three legged Buddha. There are plenty of sculptures small and large all over the property to imitate, interact with, or just admire. The grounds are generally all very well maintained and balanced. At the end of the day, it’s just a beautiful landscaped park to explore with friends and family.
Stay on the main paved roads, the rental bikes aren’t particularly great on the gravel or hiking trails. Elizabeth nearly took a spill braking going downhill on one of them.
Summary
If you’re in upstate New York, this is a must see on a good weather day. And it certainly could be combined with other attractions in the region for any folks living in New York City to make a weekend out of it. While it’s a doable day trip, it would be quite exhausting via public transit, and I would recommend staying in the area.
Do not expect to be able to walk through the Wavefield installation before June. While it is frozen or rainy it is essential to minimize foot traffic to allow the grass to improve its resiliency for the remainder of the year. Even then, they will close off entry for the first two weeks of every month to maintain the site’s health.
Additional Information
Enjoy this excellent slideshow by Librado Romero.
Notes from Maya Lin about how to experience Wavefield
About walking across the ridges:
“Everybody likes to walk just along the ridge. And as long as they walk transverse to the waves, it’s fine. But, of course, that requires a little bit of extra effort on your part to go up and down, so everyone just cheats and says, ‘I’m going to climb to the ridge,’ and that kills the ridge. It just—it cannot take that kind of cowpath going along.”
About immersing yourself in the valleys:
“What if I could pull these waves up over your head so that you’re actually lost within a wave flow? To me, these works, and maybe all my works, tend to try to dialogue with you on a very empathetic, physical, physiological level so that it’s literally ‘forget about anything you might know or want to connect to and just be within it and kind of connect one-on-one to the piece.’”
Sources
Cotter, Holland, "Behind a Sculpture, an Artist’s Touch," The New York Times, May 7, 2009, https://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/08/arts/design/08lin.html
Maya Lin Studio, "Storm King Wavefield," Maya Lin Studio, Accessed November 28, 2023, https://www.mayalinstudio.com/art/storm-king-wavefield.
"Maya Lin creates 'Storm King Wavefield' at storm king art center," designboom, Accessed November 28, 2023, https://www.designboom.com/art/maya-lin-storm-king-wavefield/.
Maya Lin, Interviewed by Sarah Dziedzic, "Oral History Interview about Wavefield," Storm King Art Center Collections, June 22, 2018. Accessed November 28, 2023, https://collections.stormking.org/Detail/oralhistory/5724.
"Wavefield," Storm King Art Center, Accessed November 28, 2023, https://stormking.org/wavefield/.
History.com Editors, "The 21-Year-Old College Student Who Designed the Vietnam Memorial," HISTORY, November 14, 2018, https://www.history.com/news/the-21-year-old-college-student-who-designed-the-vietnam-memorial.
"Maya Lin - Wave Field," Public Delivery, July 8, 2022, Accessed November 28, 2023, https://publicdelivery.org/maya-lin-wave-field/.
"Maya Lin’s ‘Wave Field’," The New York Times, Published on April 29, 2008, https://www.nytimes.com/video/arts/design/1194832296918/maya-lin-s-wave-field.html."A Unique New
Map for Storm King Art Center," CG Partners LLC Fresh, Accessed January 1, 2024, https://www.cgpartnersllc.com/fresh/post/a-unique-new-map-for-storm-king-art-center/.
