Mary Miss (b New York, 27 May 1944). American sculptor, draughtsman, film maker  and environmental artist. As a child she was taken by her father on many  visits to early forts, Indian sites and abandoned mines. In Stuttgart with her  family she saw the remains of demolished buildings as well as medieval  towns and castle ruins, which left a strong impression. She studied at the  University of California, Santa Barbara (BA 1966), and at the Rhine Art  School of Sculpture, Maryland Art Institute, Baltimore (MFA 1968). On a  summer sculpture course at Colorado College, Colorado Springs (1963), she  became aware of the work of John Cage, Robert Rauschenberg and Robert  Morris and of ideas initiated by contemporary Minimalist sculptors and land  artists. Her early landscape works dealt primarily with the measurement of  distances in relation to a specific location in a temporal work: for example,  Untitled (wood, 12*6 ft [3.66*1.83 m] sections at 50 ft [15.25 m] intervals,  1973; New York, Battery Park landfill), intended to relate the visual with the  physicality of the objects and landscape. Miss first exhibited in 1970 at the  Whitney Annual and exhibited regularly from 1972. Later works draw on the  architecture, landscape design, gardens and history of worldwide cultures. Her  films include Cut-off, focusing on the interaction of landscape, viewer and  set. Photographs taken during walking treks in various parts of the world  inform her practice.