SALINAS VALLEY — California Rodeo Salinas President Steve Davis recently unveiled the rodeo’s 2025 commemorative poster.
The poster is unique, featuring a stockholder certificate as its background with a saddle bronc rider illustrated by Teal Blake in the center. Blake also painted the popular 2023 commemorative poster.
“I wanted to help create a one-of-a-kind poster and loved Teal’s artwork and the idea of him painting on a stockholders’ certificate,” Davis said. “He paints on ledgers and livestock papers for ranchers, so this was a spin on that concept. I hope everyone loves the finished product as much as we do.”
Blake, who has been painting professionally since 2005, grew up in Montana, on the eastern slope of the Rocky Mountains, surrounded by ranching country.
Growing up in his father’s studio looking at C.M. Russell paintings and reading Will James books inspired him to pick up a pencil and start capturing his own visions of cowboys and the American West. He has always liked to show what makes the traditional West: cowboys not always clean-shaven, shirts not always creased and their horses’ manes not always long.
In 2014, Blake’s labor, talent and accomplishments earned him an invitation into the renowned Cowboy Artists of America organization. He has also been honored with several awards, including the Joe Beeler CAA Foundation Award and First Place Watercolor at the Phippen Museum, and has been featured in such magazines as Western Horseman, Western Art & Architecture, Southwest Art, Ranch & Reata and The Cowboy Way.
Posters will be sold in the California Rodeo Office at 1034 N. Main St. in Salinas, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. (closed Fridays from 11:45 a.m. to 1:15 p.m.). They will also be available at carodeo.com later.
