Artist Ellen Rice to sign prints at Ocean View Gallery Aug. 3

To begin celebrating its 20th anniversary, Ellen Rice Gallery will host a casual signing for the artist’s newest oil painting in print, “Sunrise.” The event will be held from 2 to 5 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 3. Light refreshments, including wine and cheese, will be served. The gallery is at 111 Atlantic Ave., Ocean View, 2.2 miles west of Bethany Beach.

Some 20 years ago, lifelong Delaware artist Ellen Rice signed the lease for part of an Ocean View building that would one day house one of the most successful art galleries of its size in the country.

“I was scared,” she said. “I had no retail experience, little money, no backers, and the rent was almost as much as my mortgage payment, but I had this idea for creating a space that would be uplifting and relaxing, where people could wind down and find peace while looking at my work, and it felt right. I forged ahead, praying God would stop me if it wasn’t right.

“Instead, within a week of signing the lease, a woman called me asking if she could purchase an inspirational painting of encouragement for women, a very large piece I’d barely sketched out. We came to an agreement, and she paid for it monthly. The payments covered almost to the penny my gallery’s rent and electricity for its entire first year.”

Over the next two decades there were a lot of ups and downs, tremendous successes and hard trials. The gallery grew and won awards, original paintings continued selling before they were completed, and Rice worked to improve her work and flesh out ideas for paintings that constantly flow and more that come to her in prayer. “Someone once told me to watch my thoughts as I was painting, that people would pick up on them, and I believe that’s true. My paintings aren’t perfect, yet it amazes me people’s response to them,” she said.

Rice opened her gallery praying her way through each step, with the help of friends and putting in 60 to 70 hours per week.  As it grew, she hired a full-time manager and part-time help. With each sale of her work, she invested in bringing new paintings into print, advertising and bringing into her gallery more local, regional and nationally known artisans’ creations in myriad media, from garden art, glass art and sculpture to wearable art, leather work, clocks, tide clocks and fine handmade jewelry.

Over the years, Ellen Rice was honored by Delaware Beach Life Magazine, Coastal Style Magazine and PNC Bank. Her following spread nationally and internationally. Her original paintings and prints can today be found in private, government and corporate collections in 14 countries on four continents.

Rice is widely known for her luminescent seascapes and bay scenes and a map that shows the shipwreck history of Delmarva. But the painting that paved the way for Rice’s gallery that first year is “Standing on the Rock,” painted from a vision she’d seen in prayer during a time of multiple life trials. It remains her best-selling work, alongside six other paintings in her “Strength of Woman Series,” each with their own encouraging written message.

For more information, go to www.ellenrice.gallery.