Flutter

Taking her cue from the boat-like image of the courthouse, Maya Lin created an earthwork of soil and grass that rises and falls in waves as if to give the building a surface to float upon. Flutter consists of a pair of sculpted lawns that mimic rippling water or sand, a familiar sight to residents and visitors of coastal south Florida.

Although Flutter occupies more than an acre of land in front of the main entrance to the courthouse, its scale is decidedly human, encouraging visitors to take a walk through its undulating terrain. The idea of making a place for individuals within the urban landscape, a refuge where they can have a moment of quiet reflection, has been important to the artist throughout her career. In her book, Boundaries, Lin reflects on the meaning of her art: “I like to think of my work as creating a private conversation with each person, no matter how public each work is and no matter how many people are present.”

Flutter, like Lin’s other large-scale earthen artworks, reflects her passion for exploring natural phenomena and translating naturally occurring environments into sculpted form. Her works are artistic responses to the beauty that exists in the natural world. Lin’s interest in landscape and topology began when she was a child growing up in southeastern Ohio, where the terrain is hilly and wooded. Additionally, the presence of American Indian earthen mounds within this landscape also had a profound and lasting impact on her art. Although her earthworks are made of simple soil and grass, Lin’s view of the landscape—and her manipulation of it—is distinctly twenty-first century. To create works such as Flutter, she studies aerial photographs, sonar maps, and satellite images, and spends a considerable amount of time planning, drawing, and modeling to conceptualize her work.