Blog

5/3/2017 3:08:22 PM

Ranches and Rolling Hills Art Show - 20th Anniversary 2017

January Morning-Gale Ranch, 15x30", oil

What a beautiful Spring we're having this year after all that much needed rain. The verdant hills and fields serve as a large and very fresh "salad bowl" for all the happy cows, sheep, and goats on the MALT ranches in West Marin in Northern California. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the Ranches & Rolling Hills Art Show benefitting the Marin Agricultural Land Trust. It will be my 18th year as one of 36 participating artists that come together each year the third weekend in May to create one of Northern California's most prestigious art shows.

Spring at the Gale Ranch, 5x24", oil

This year I have spend quite a bit of time at the Chileno Valley Ranch owned by my friends Mike and Sally Gale. I have been ranch sitting on several occasions and this has given me some great opportunities to collect amazing subject matter for my paintings. Sally's Katahdin sheep are my favorite, especially since I have been helping to bottle feed some of the "bummer lambs", ones that the ewe refuses to feed for one reason or another. The bummer lambs become attached to humans and follow you around as if you were the mom. Last year there was Nutmeg who still remembers me, and he'll come up and want to say hi and have a good chin scratch whenever I visit. This year there's Alice, a beautiful white bummer lamb. Needless to say, one can't help but fall in love with these wonderful creatures. I always look forward to my ranch visits when I can spend time with the animals whether they be the chickens, dogs, cows, or sheep...and of course Mike and Sally too!

I truly look forward to creating paintings for the Ranches & Rolling Hills art show every spring. It gives me great satisfaction to be painting for a show that benefits such an important cause where 50% of proceeds from the sale of artwork will go to saving precious ranch land and guaranteeing that the protected ranches remain as they are, never to be developed. For more than 30 years, Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT) has worked with local families to save their farms and ranches. So far MALT has protected, as "farmland forever", 80 farm families on more than 48,500 acres of farmland.

Marin's farms provide delicious milk and cheese, meat, vegetables, fruit and wine to people in the Bay Area and beyond. With the public parks that surround them, farms preserve a contiguous open landscape that is home to abundant wildlife, verdant grasslands, sparkling streams and dense woods. Ranching families have faithfully cared for this working landscape for many generations, guarding an extraordinary place unlike anywhere else in the world.

For more information on MALT and the art show please visit their website: http://www.malt.org/art-show

ChristinCoy.com

Good Morning - Gale Ranch, 12x9", oil

3/11/2012 10:47:04 PM

Ranches & Rolling Hills - MALT Art show and sale 2012

Christin Coy / Comment on this

Spring is here a bit early this year with daffodils and fruit trees in full bloom. I have been visiting some beautiful West Marin MALT ranches, painting and collecting images for this year's 15th Annual "Ranches & Rolling Hills" art show. Three years ago I painted a portrait of a sheep named Torpedo on Al Poncia's ranch in Tomales. He was one of the 'bum' lambs raised by Anita, Al Poncia's mom, in her laundry room. A 'bum lamb' is one that is rejected by the mother ewe and therefore has either be hand fed or attached to another ewe. He became very tame and for a long time loved people more than his own kind. A couple of weeks ago I made a visit to the ranch and Torpedo was grazing out in the field. When I called his name, he came ambling over to the car and almost hopped in to see what I had in my cooler. I knew he liked apple, so I quickly pulled one out and cut off little pieces to give him. Torpedo loved it and soon had eaten the whole apple. He scratched my leg, just like a dog, begging for more. What a character! I gave him some good back scratches, which he gladly accepted, before he ambled off into the pasture with his flock.

I decided I had to paint another portrait of this friendly guy, and so he will once again make an appearance at the "Ranches & Rolling Hills" Art show to be held in Nicasio on May 19th and 20th, 2012. Make sure to mark your calendars and come out West to see a great show featuring over 40 well known California artists' works of art. Fifty percent of the art sales will go to benefit Marin Agricultural Land Trust so that they can enable Marin ranchers to continue working their land. The event is free to the public. Please visit "Ranches & Rolling Hills Art Show" for more information about this event. Hope to see you there....

5/16/2011 7:20:04 PM

MALT - Ranches & Rolling Hills Art Show

Christin Coy / Comment on this

May is here and on the 21st and 22nd the Ranches & Rolling Hills Art Show will return to the little town of Nicasio in West Marin. This week some of us will be raising panels, mounting lights, and hanging all of this years new crop of wonderful paintings depicting life on the ranches of West Marin. It's always exciting to see all the art work as it's unwrapped and labeled. Next comes the overwhelming task of arranging the paintings to be hung on the blank panels, something that Arturo Tello of the Oak Group has mastered over the past 12 years. With a lot of patience and a good eye for what will look best where, he walks the floor moving paintings around and arranging them in the best order. Then the hanging crew comes in and we measure and hang each painting with the correct height and spacing, a daunting task at first until we get used to the technique. Within 3 days the old Druid Hall is transformed once again into a beautiful art gallery.

This year I painted "Lucy", a Jersey calf from the Gale Ranch in Chileno Valley. I also will be showing a painting that might just put a smile on your face when you see it. "Milly and the Kids" are six curious Nubian goats lined up next to each other checking you out across the field. When the painting was sitting on my easel it was always fun to come into my studio and find them waiting for me.

The weather forecast is looking good for this week end, sunny but not too hot. We are expecting a big crowd of visitors to once again fill the art gallery and hopefully take home some of their favorite paintings. And in doing so, help benefit Marin Agricultural Land Trust so that they can continue preserving the precious farms land of West Marin. Hope to see you all there!

For more information on the event click here: http://malt.org/programs/sale.php

5/1/2010 1:24:56 AM

MALT - Ranches & Rolling Hills Show Coming in May

Christin Coy / Comment on this

Spring is here with what seems like endless rain storms with some sun in between. It all made it a bit more challenging this year to visit the ranches to do our painting for the upcoming Ranches and Rolling Hills art show on May 15th and 16th. But, landscape painters manage somehow to brave the wind and rain in order to accomplish their goal, to paint inspiring views on the MALT ranches that are located in beautiful West Marin.

My first painting this year is one of Angel, a white lamb that Al Poncia's mom raised as her pet sheep. Angel was trained much like a dog, walking in and out of the house with a little bell around her neck. I guess you could say that I have a real soft spot for painting sheep...

I visited the Gale ranch in Chileno Valley last Fall in order to do some paintings when the grasses were golden rather than spring green. As a painter I find that I prefer the warm colors of the golden grasses as you can see in this painting with the Gale's flock of grazing sheep.

On Monday May 10th all the artists will be bringing this years crop of paintings to the MALT office in Pt. Reyes Station and in the following week the show will go up once again in the humble Druids Hall in Nicasio. By Satuday morning the place will have been transformed into an incredible art gallery filled with amazing paintings of West Marin's MALT ranches.

You won't want to miss this art show...you'll surely walk away with a new appreciation for the inspiring beauty of West Marin's farmland, and maybe you'll take a part of it with you home in the form of an amazing painting created by one of the talented artists in this yearsRanches and Rolling Hills Art Show.

For more information... Click Here: MALT - Ranches & Rolling Hills Show

4/15/2009 1:07:17 PM

It's "Ranches & Rolling Hills" time...

Christin Coy / Comment on this

It's once again "Ranches and Rolling Hills" time of the year for me. As soon as Spring shows it's face with those iridescent green hills and fields, I know it's time to start entering my ranch and critter painting mode. I love the opportunity MALT presents me to paint animals once again. I get to visit some of my favorite ranches and try to capture some images of cows and sheep that will inspire me to paint them.

This year I made a visit to the Poncia Ranch in Tomales and enjoyed catching up on the latest animal news there. Al told me he rescued a new born calf he found in the field and decided to name the pure black calf Obama. He said they call him Obaba's Mama! Al has a flock of sheep also and last year my painting of "Torpedo" made headlines at the show. This year I have focused on portraying more of the flock and enjoy painting the sheep together as they graze peacefully across the Poncia Ranch hillsides.

I also made a visit to my favorite ranch, the Gale Ranch, in Cheleno Valley. Sally has 7 pregnant sheep grazing in her pasture, and yes I was inspired to paint this painting of the "Three Pregnant Sisters". They have since had their lambs, 2 each!

4/14/2009 9:56:28 PM

MALT "Ranches & Rolling Hills" Art Show Coming in May

Elisabeth Ptak - Associate Director/Director of Outreach for MALT / Comment on this

Ranches & Rolling Hills, an annual sale of western Marin County landscape art to benefit Marin Agricultural Land Trust (MALT), will take place on Saturday, May 16, and Sunday, May 17, 2009, at the Druid’s Hall on the Village Square in Nicasio, California.

The show features more than 250 images of natural and working landscapes, including many of the family farms that have been permanently protected by MALT. The work of 40 outstanding artists is included in this significant West Coast exhibit.

Ranches & Rolling Hills art also depicts other private farmlands as well as historic landscapes located within Point Reyes National Seashore—all of them reflecting the human and natural history that make West Marin such a special and beloved place.

Ranches & Rolling Hills was celebrated in a 2008 book of the same name which showcases the art and provides a historical record of protected farmland in Marin. The book can be purchased at Bay Area bookstores or at www.malt.org.

Curator Michael Whitt of Point Reyes Station co-founded Ranches & Rolling Hills in 1998, along with the late Ray Strong, dean of Santa Barbara's highly respected Oak Group of painters.

Artists participating in the 2009 show include Marin painters Martha Borge, Christin Coy, Willard Dixon, Timothy Horn, Susan Hall, Richard Lindenberg, Wendy Schwartz, and Zee Zee Mott, along with Santa Barbara artists Arturo Tello, Sarah Vedder, Meredith Brooks Abbott, Whitney Brooks Abbott, Ward Walkup, and other members of the OakGroup. Marin County lithographs by Russell Chatham also will be available for purchase.

Proceeds from art and book sales benefit MALT’s farmland preservation program, which provides a conservation alternative to the sale or subdivision of Marin farmland. Some of the Bay Area's most highly acclaimed dairy products and organic crops, including Cowgirl Creamery cheeses, Straus Family Creamery dairy products, and Point Reyes Original Blue Cheese are produced from farmland protected by MALT conservation easements.

The Ranches & Rolling Hills Landscape Art Show and Sale is open to the public at no charge from 2–5 P.M. on Saturday, May 16, and from 10 A.M.–4 P.M. on Sunday, May 17. For information, visit www.malt.org or phone 415-663-1158.