Silver Missouri

Maya Lin’s silver sculpture of the Missouri River captures, to scale (1 foot = 75 miles), its bends and arcs, narrows and widths. The subject of Lewis and Clark’s Corps of Discovery Expedition (1804–1806), the Missouri flows from western Montana, through Kansas City and joins the Mississippi River in St. Louis. From there, they flow as one to the Gulf of Mexico, forming the fourth longest river system in the world. Rivers are the arteries and veins of our earth, carrying water from snow-capped mountains to fertile plains and from flood-stricken lands to the sea. Artist, architect and environmentalist Maya Lin is keenly aware of their essential place in our fragile ecosystem. Her commitment to our earth and its creatures is also evident on her website, www.whatismissing.net. Here, she tracks the dwindling numbers and extinction of natural species and habitats throughout the globe.