Though famed for her winning design of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., Maya Lin also desiged houses, gardens, sculpture, landscape architecture, public art, a library, a museum, a line of furniture, a skating rink, clothing, two chapels, and a bakery, and produced such "studio sculptures" as "Avalanche" and "Groundswell," each composed of tons of broken glass. "I have fought very, very hard," she once remarked, "to get past being known as the Monument Maker."

In March 2003, Lin attended the dedication of one of her installations, a winter garden in the lobby of the American Express Client Services Center in downtown Minneapolis. At noon, she gave a presentation to American Express employees in the cafeteria, showing slides and explaining how the work was related to some of her other pieces (like "Topographic Landscape"). She also answered several questions. One woman asked Lin if she could tell them how she designed the Vietnam Memorial. Lin laughed. "No," she said. "Not today."