I had watched part of "Maya Lin: A Strong Clear Vision" long time ago. As you know Lin was the designer of Vietnam Memorial War and just 21 years old at the time. And this was one of the most controversial design competition of all time.

Today I had a chance to watch a whole documentary in a theater with others including Mr. Robert E. Simon, a founder of Reston. Maya sent us a strong message about doing something that is important, meaningful and never compromise your vision once you fully understand the subject and your interpretation.

I personally have an urge to get myself to do what I should do for a while. I am good at something but I am doing something else which most of the time are told by somebody else. Why ? So watching this really gives me a push and encouragement.

If you have never watched this documentary, you just have to.

Below are my favorite speech and quotes from her. You can google search and find more from there.

On Vietnam Memorial War Project

"If you can't accept death, you'll never get over it. So what the Memorial's about is honesty... You have to accept, and admit that this pain has occurred, in order for it to be healed, in order for it to be cathartic... All I was saying in this piece was the cost of war is these individuals. And we have to remember them first."

"I deliberately did not read anything about the Vietnam War because I felt the politics of the war eclipsed what happened to the veterans. The politics were irrelevant to what this memorial was."

"If we can't face death, we'll never overcome it. You have to look it straight in the eye. Then you can turn around and walk back out into the light."

"It was a requirement by the veterans to list the 57,000 names. We're reaching a time that we'll acknowledge the individual in a war on a national level."

"OK, it was black, it was below grade, I was female, Asian American, young, too young to have served. Yet I think none of the opposition in that sense hurt me."

On other subjects...

"You have to have conviction and completely question everything and anything you do. No matter how much you study, no matter how much you know, the side of your brain that has the smarts won't necessarily help you in making art."

"You have to let the viewers come away with their own conclusions. If you dictate what they should think, you've lost it."

"I try to give people a different way of looking at their surroundings. That's art to me."

"Architecture has the potential to influence how we relate to each other and to the environment. My interest in art, may seem less socially motivated - art doesn't serve a specific purpose, it is not yet "functional" yet I think nothing bothered me more during the controversy over the Vietnam Memorial than to be misunderstood as an 'elite artist' only concerned with the 'look' of her work - it saddened me to think that some couldn't see how art relates to people that it is meant to communicate with people - or that an artist fights to retain the integrity of the work so that it remains a strong clear vision, that can affect people."