What is Missing?

If you ever want to know what guides an artist’s visual thoughts, look at their walls in their studio; not at their work, but the images of others’ art, or magazine clippings of current events. I want to bring your attention to one print that has occupied my studio walls since grad school and has been catching my attention recently.

 Pablo Picasso, Boy Leading Horse, 1906

In this earth-toned oil painting, Pablo Picasso depicted a boy and his horse walking together. The right leg of both boy and horse are positioned forward and sized similarly, the left leg of the horse and left arm of the boy are mirroring shapes. It is not these technical decisions that catch my attention when I look at the painting; it is what is missing in the painting that reminds me to pay attention.

Recently, I went to a lecture given by artist, architect and memorial designer, Maya Lin. She emphasized her work that has an overall environmental theme, and spent a good 1/3 of her time talking about a new online memorial she is currently working on called, What is Missing? . On this site she illustrates our rapidly changing earth and creates a virtual environmental memorial of places and events that have changed or gone missing. Please visit and add your memories of your environmental experiences that have gone missing because of changes on our earth.

The current NYC carriage horse ban that Mayor de Blasio has proposed has got me wondering what will be missing if horses are banned from our cities. Edward Chamberlin wrote a beautiful article in the opinion pages of New York Daily News, citing facts of man’s relationship with horses that initiated some 6,000 years ago. His well- crafted words do this man/animal covenant justice. Why remove horses from our city lives? Why segregate, and only experience our relationship to animals in rural environments? Blue StarEquiculture, has been fiercely vocal and true ambassadors about the need for horses in our urban and rural lives. As I venture deeper into the Contemporary Pastoralism project that I have developed, these two, social practicing, artist and farmer help me understand the deep-seeded reasons of why I bring natural materials to my sculptures.

 The Japanese have the phrase, "natsukashii furusato," meaning, an old memory of my hometown; a memory that is felt. In our slick world of florescent lights and computers I strive to bring back a memory of texture and smell that is a part of our collective past. Only one or two generations ago, sheep, horses, cows, were a part of our lives helping build cities, clothe and nourish ourselves and communities.

So what did Picasso leave out in his painting that has me looking up at my studio wall? The subtle gesture of holding reins that are not there illustrates connection; innate communication and an understanding between the boy and his horse. If horses are removed from the city, if our childhood memories of the environment are only witnessed through a virtual world because they have gone missing, we start to forget that we are a human animal, and become isolated and alone in the world.

Human and Farm Animal Covenant

Here is an incredibly poetic and beautifully tender film about the human and animal covenant that takes place on farms.

....When we become responsible for an animal's life, we become responsible for an animal's death....

Links:

Covenant, by Michael Mercil

Meet Tony the Farrier

Paul Moshimer, Farrier Tony Diemand, and Pamela Rickenbach talk about the fate of carriage horses in New York City.

at Blue Star Equiculture.

One of my favorite parts about the Contemporary Pastoralism Project, is meeting tradesmen who come to the farms to help care for the animals. On Wednesday I met Tony Diemand, a wonderfully eccentric farrier who works with some of the largest hooves I have ever seen, belonging to the beautiful work horses who live at Blue Star Equiculture in Palmer, MA.

I learned a little bit about his trade. For example, after having his foot in the wrong place (ouch!) he told me that it is not good to have steel toed boots because the steel can not handle the weight of these horses and would...well you can picture, what might happen. I arrived with ink and paper hoping Tony could aid me in using all that weight and get monoprints from a living and breathing press! Please visit HERE for more pictures.

Wendell Berry

Wendell Berry is interviewed by Roger Cohn for Yale Environment 360 about Berry's thoughts on small farming and the importance of caring for the land. It can be read in full HERE.

Here is an excerpt:

e360: You’ve had four careers, really — writer, farmer, activist, and teacher. How do you see those parts of your life fitting together?

Berry: A question I’m often asked is, “How have you balanced these various pursuits?” And the word “balance” always implies that I have balanced them, and of course I haven’t. It’s been difficult and sometimes a struggle to keep it all going.

e360: Difficult in what way?

Berry: Well, to find time for it all. I’ve known writers — I think it’s true also of other artists — who thought that you had to put your art before everything. But if you have a marriage and a family and a farm, you’re just going to find that you can’t always put your art first, and moreover that you shouldn’t. There are a number of things more important than your art. It’s wrong to favor it over your family, or over your place, or over your animals.

Blue Star Equiculture

Blue Star Equiculture, a working horse rescue and sanctuary farm in Palmer, MA., will be my studio for a month this fall.

Photo by Doug Anderson. Meet Tex and Mark, gentle giants between 2000 and 2,700 pounds each. 

Co-founders Pamela Rickenbach and Paul Moshimer, along with writer/photographer Doug Anderson, recently spent the afternoon introducing me to the 35 big-hearted inhabitants of Blue Star Equiculture. Each horse has their own story, some as loving carriage horses from Philadelphia or farm draft horses; some are recovering from injuries and others are being harnessed up for work. Full of personality and wanting to work, these beautiful horses are going to be incredible collaborators and teachers during our time together this year.

Blue Star Equiculture could also be called Blue Star Sapie(n)center. Many volunteers come to work with the horses and organic farms. It is a horse/human community center thriving on hard work. At risk youth find important and grounding work as well as, a large number of elderly volunteers come to groom and massage the large beings on the farm. It is an epicenter for rural Palmer, MA

Photo by Doug Anderson. Pamela Rickenbach from Blue Star Equiculture talking with me about the history of the farm's land and rescue horses

Photo by Doug Anderson.  So Tall!!

Welcome!

Welcome to the blog for Contemporary Pastoralism a new project from Nancy Winship Milliken Studio. You will find here posts of projects and collaborating farms for this multi-year, trading studio for farm, endeavor. Like the studio on Facebook for related articles and pictures.

Immersed in the wave of the back to the land, local and organic food movement, this project is an investigative process and response to the materials, animals, environment and small farming practices that shape the pastoral landscape. Of particular interest to me is the birth and slaughter, give and take contract between humans, animals and how that is reflected in the farming practice and the land. As the small farms and rural landscapes, both nationally and internationally, become my studio, I will engage with the elemental nature of farming as well as re-invent that engagement.

Living and working on various small farms will allow me the time and space to be more than a witness, steeped in the materials, beating hearts and mud of the farms. The agricultural rhythms, textures, smells and sounds of each farm all inform the resulting installations, sculptures and prints. The authenticity of materials will present a textural sensory antidote to our increasing separation from nature. Working in collaboration with farmers and animals, non-utilitarian art will co-exist with essential crafts of the small farm. This artistic collaboration and process itself is a performance to be documented and as a result so will the character of each farm and it’s humans.

In the tradition of rural art, the local community of the small farms will be engaged. The site-responsive sculpture, prints, performance documentation and resulting book will be brought out of its rural context through gallery/museum tours, and employing social media and web-based video