Nancy Winship Milliken (Charlotte, Vermont, b. 1962– )
In collaboration with Eliot Hays Lothrop (Huntington, Vermont, b. 1978– )
Earth Glow, 2020–22
Charred wood post and beam, steel cable, fishing line, white beeswax, and hardware                             
Courtesy of the artist

Winship Milliken’s sculptures often derive from a series of thoughtful experiments with new materials and techniques, many times without a deliberate goal in mind. Earth Glow grew out of the artist’s multiyear exploration with a new, challenging material: beeswax. “In a way, to cope with our stay-at-home order two years ago, I started rolling beeswax into spheres,” Winship Milliken explains. “In a process of accumulation of both time and spheres, I have bins of them.” Based in a multisensory and meditative process—common aspects of Winship Milliken’s artistic practice—the artist heats the beeswax until the sensitive material becomes malleable and can be shaped into orb-like objects.

Winship Milliken accumulated more than 600 pounds of beeswax to create Earth Glow. The beeswax glows and absorbs heat during warm, sun-soaked days and subtly undulates in the breeze on windy ones, reacting and adapting to its location. In place at Shelburne Museum, Earth Glow highlights the ecological and agricultural importance of bees and other pollinators and extends a visual reference to the sun’s power in relation to the Museum’s two solar arrays. Installed in 2021, the solar arrays fully power the Museum through an estimated 1.2 million

View process images of this work here:

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