Maya Lin's "Wave Field" - NYTimes.com/video

"These dunes would simply need to be inactive enough to allow grass to grow."

Yes ... That's exactly what the Nebraska Sand Hills are: Largely inactive sand dunes which were last fully active during the waning stages of the Pleistocene. I drove through them last back in summer 1995. Looking at Lin's work, I was immediately reminded of them.

" ... it is miles away from something like Robert Smithson's "Spiral Jetty" "

Smithson was the first "Earth artist" I discovered way back when. I visited the Spiral Jetty about twelve years ago. It was somewhat above lake level at that time, but not fully. A very strange sight (and site) indeed. Have you been there?

I have not Spiral Jetty, but I would like to. I have been in the area once, but at that time, I had no idea who Robert Smithson was. Much hoopla was made about the piece in a number of my art classes.

a question on your experience-- how natural did the piece seem? Can you still see any evidence for the work that was needed to make Spiral Jetty or have the years worn it down to the point at which it seems a more natural addition to the landscape?

"how natural did the piece seem?"

Well, shoot. It's spiral form jutting out from a shoreline. It's entirely UNnatural!

"Can you still see any evidence for the work that was needed to make Spiral Jetty ... ?"

The whole area around it was something of an industrial waste site ... there is abandoned oil rig infrastructure not far from the jetty itself ... so it was far from a pristine site to begin with ... which, if I remember right, was one reason Smithson chose the site.

At the time of my visit, there was little if any signage directing you to the site. I remember visiting Golden Spike Nat. Monument (north of Spiral Jetty site) and receiving a handout from the staff containing directions. It's a very remote area. I also remember abandoned house trailers out near SJ, around which I poked. I also remember that the hillslope above the shoreline out from which SJ is built is covered with tufa- or caliche-encrusted basalt boulders.

Also ... I remember that the boulders forming SJ have become encrusted with salt since its construction.