Contemporary Pastoralism

welcome interns!

Five wonderful new college interns from my two alma maters,  University of Vermont and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, are working with the studio this summer at Clemmons Family Farm in Charlotte, VT. Some are Environmental students and some art majors. Welcome Gabrielle Rosenbacher, Phoebe Tucker, Cullen Hairston, Dory Sumner and Chloe Dubois.

Cate McQuaid's review of Postcards from the Field in Boston Globe

My Mother Killed

The following is our son's poem he wrote when he was 17, as a result of my helping a farm cull some chickens for winter. Below is the responding sculpture. This can be seen at Greenfield Community College, along with other sculpture October 6 through November 7, 2015 in Greenfield, Massachusetts

My Mother Killed

My Mother killed

Some chickens in our backyard.

At night the coyotes come to lick the grass.

Charles Milliken

 

My Mother Killed, duck feathers, hardware cloth, 10x2', 2014

My Mother Killed, duck feathers, hardware cloth, 10x2', 2014


Windscape-Westport is up and sailing

Windscape-Westport, 2015, at Dedee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, MA

Windscape-Westport, 2015, at Dedee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, MA

New placement of Windscape for the summer in an installation called Windscape-Westport. Salt and wool, field and stone, cedar and hay, coastal breezes: heaven. Up through October 2015. @Dedee Shattuck Gallery in Westport, MA. Many thanks to Jim Wood for the loan of his field, to Richard Sisson and his crew, Charlie McElwee and Olivia decker, and the Shattuck Gallery crew for their help in the installation of 16 meadow sails.

Video of Thought Process for Windscape

This summer, Cami Davis' Environmental Art class from University of Vermont worked with me on the Windscape installation at Shelburne Farms, in Shelburne, Vermont. One student stayed on and worked as a studio assistant. He is an incredible weaver! He also is a talented videographer. Please check out Jacob Lumbra! This video has a unique take about the process for Windscape.

 

"The goal of "Peace Comes Slowly Now" is to explore the artistic process through the lens of Nancy Winship Milliken's work on "Windscapes" for BCA's 2014 exhibition, Of Land and Local, at Shelburne Farms. This is coming from my time spent as her studio assistant for a month of her residency. This illustration of the artistic process is also a document of the setting and mood that accompanied Milliken's residency during the time I spent with her. I see art here as a meditative process that involves time, patience, and exploration. The time spent renders a physical manifestation of thought. The video begins by taking the terrestrial inspiration of the woods, landscape, lake, land, sheep and wool, then forwards into Milliken's work with ambient shots of the process, surroundings, and conditions of work.  This leads into a thought space that involves clouds and the sail form. The video transitions into the materiality of the work in its outdoor space as it interacts with the elements—particularly light and wind.  The final clip offers a snapshot of the completed installation with interaction from sheep and sheep herder." Jacob Lumbra

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