Connecticut Artists Support New Pond Farm

With Special Show And Sale

Redding — New Pond Farm, Redding’s unique environmental education center and working farm, with its 102 acres of sweeping meadow vistas and wooded hills, has long inspired local artists with its special beauty. This summer 50 artists, armed with brush and canvas, have captured its barns, animals and liberating landscapes in their chosen media of expression. Now, New Pond Farm and these local artists are joining forces for the benefit of both in a first-of-its-kind art show and sale during the week of Sunday, August 26, through Friday, August 31.

Among the participating artists is Ruth Newquist of Newtown, whose watercolor “Checking the Board” was the recently awarded Best in Show at the Kent Art Association’s President’s Show.

Organized by Kristine Holm, known to local audiences as chronicler of New Pond Farm’s bucolic Eden and now the farm’s first artist-in-residence, the art event will focus on “Flora, Fauna, Landscapes and Barns of New Pond Farm.” Ms Holm’s painting of a majestic Romney ewe “Bonnie” already hangs in a place of honor over the fireplace in the farm’s recently dedicated Learning Center. “Bonnie” will soon be joined by other “colleagues” enjoying their pastoral surroundings while hanging on special panels in the center’s exhibition room and throughout the facility.

Many of the artists invited to participate have taken advantage of the opportunity to set up easels on site in recent days to work on their images.

“Plein air painting helps you create a more authentic feeling in your work — the essence of being there,” says Muci Clemens, another noted Redding artist. “At the farm, it’s the smell of the cows, their soulful eyes and sharing the flies, it’s the bah of the sheep — some tenor, some baritone — and the soft texture of their coats that spurs your creativity.” 

Ms Clemens painted side-by-side one day with other plein air specialists from all over the region, among them members of the Connecticut Plein Air Painters Society who meet to paint outdoors together and to work to save the state’s natural landscapes and dwindling supply of farms. 

The art exhibition and sale is the farm’s final fundraising event in its capital campaign, scheduled to take the farm over the top of its $3 million campaign goal. It offers the art-loving public a perfect opportunity to support a worthy cause while acquiring a treasured work of art.

The show can be viewed between 1 and 5 pm August 26 through August 31, until 8 pm on Thursday, August 30. The farm, which recently won a Connecticut Dairy Farm of Distinction Award, is located on the corner of Marchant and Umpawaug Roads.

For more information, call 203-938-2117 or visit NewPondFarm.org.