Mr. Kerr's image (Maya Lin is the designer of the Vietnam War Memorial)

Maya Lin's "Blue Lake Pass" is a study of landscape. This has been her interest since she was very young. She takes complex ideas about our relationship with the planet, and expresses them in simple forms. According to what I have read, she is trying to express a reverence for the natural world. She is an environmentalist not just in her ideals but in how she approaches our world itself.

Although the world portrayed in The Road is frightening, it is also beautiful. Even at its most destroyed, navigating the Earth can be a moving experience - in fact, without human company beyond his father, it is the majority of what the boy knows. There were accusations early in Lin's career that she was nihilistic. One could accuse McCarthy of the same thing, but I think that misses the point. As Maya Lin said herself, "We tend not to pay attention to that which is invisible.”