Community Corner

Meet Elizabeth Derderian, A Painter On Location

The Rye Arts Center annual event benefits everyone involved, art buyers, artists, local businesses and the city of Rye and community.

Participating in Painter’s on Location every year led to Rye artist Elizabeth Derderian to become a part of the Pearl Restaurant Group’s marketing campaigns for their Rye restaurants, Ruby’s Oyster Bar & Bistro, Morgan’s Fish House and Rye Grill and Bar.

After she painted Ruby’s during the Rye Arts Center paint-out event a few years ago, Pearl bought it and hung it right there in Ruby’s. Eventually, the restaurant company commissioned Derderian to paint a whole slew of paintings and used them in post cards that you’ll find on the tables in their lobbies and entrances. 

Derderian’s portfolio of Rye art has become a staple in these neighborhood favorite restaurants and around the community. That chain of events started thanks to the Painter’s on Location event, created to raise funds for the Rye Arts Center, but Derderian is already a well-established, award-winning artist on her own.

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Since she started focusing on painting more seriously about 12 years ago (after her kids grew up), she has won at least 20 major awards from organizations including the American Artists Professional League, the Art Society of Old Greenwich, the Rye Women’s Club and the Greenwich Art Society. You might also recognize her work on the 2010 Rye Chamber of Commerce map and visitor’s guide and the covers of Osborn School yearbooks.

So Derderian does not need to participate in (and give up half her profit to) the Rye Arts Center Painter’s on Location, but she has been a participant for years anyway for several reasons.

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 “First of all, I find it to be fun,” Derderian said. “And second of all, the main reason is to support the Rye Arts Center. It is such a Mecca of arts that we have and it needs to keep thriving the way it is. It is really a one of a kind unique place.”

Not only does Painters on Location help promote local artists, it raises thousands of dollars for the arts center to continue its work so it can pay people like Derderian,  who also teachers art classes, to train students who hope to have the same luck she has while participating. It also promotes Rye as a city and educates the community on what it has to offer. At this years Painters’ event, Derderian’s student Lori Slotkin is also painting.

“I have a student participating this year and it makes me feel really great,” Derderian said.

The event will be much different then what Slotkin has been doing in Derderian’s class.

“Usually in class students bring something that inspires them and we usually work on paintings from week to week until we perfect it. It is much different than painting outside,” Derderian said.

Plus, there is the pressure to complete a painting in one day to be sold that same evening.

“There is pressure for any artist to get a painting done in one day because you never know what you will be up against. You don’t know if you’ll have bugs in your face, or what the weather will be,” Derderian said. “It is challenging, period. But it is a nice exercise to be able to get something done in a short amount of time that you can present to someone to buy.”

Derderian expects to continue her participation with the RAC and Painter’s on Location and said she never gets tired of painting the same town.  

“Every time I paint it, the lighting is different, the circumstances are different and Rye is a beautiful town. “

Look for Derderian’s renderings of Rye Saturday night at the silent auction.

She will also have a solo exhibit in November in the Rye Free Reading Room. 

Find information about her painting class at ryeartscenter.org. 

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More about Painter’s on Location

This year’s paint-out has attracted 46 artists, half of which are new to the event. They will choose which scene to paint from a list of 35 picturesque Rye locations including the shore clubs, Marshlands, Jay Heritage Center, Docks, the Knapp House, Purchase Street and paint all day on Sept. 28.

Their wet work will then be auctioned that evening during a live auction at 6:15 p.m., after a reception from 5 to 6 p.m.

The public can then view the silent auction of existing works by participating artists in the Gallery September 16-28, during weekdays from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m.  

The evening will also pay special tribute to Rye iconic painter Howard Bratches.

The event will be held Rain or Shine. Suggested donation and/or auction bid paddles are $20 each. In the silent auction, 30 percent of the purchase goes to the RAC and the rest goes to the artist. For the Live Auction, 5 percent of the purchase goes to RAC and the other half goes to the artist.

Other articipating local artists include Jim Langley, John Clark, Laura Anechiarico, Lori Slotkin, all of Rye; Port Chester artist M. Colleen Harrigan and Rye Brook artist Ying Chen. 


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