Yes George - Entrepreneur is a French word

Poor George...he thought there was no word French word for entrepreneur but yes - it truly is a French word meaning "to undertake" or assuming the risk of running ones own business. In this blog I want to toot the horn so to speak for those entrepreneurs out there who took the risk and established their own businesses or simply support themselves through their own hard work not for anyone else. Etsy is a great place to start but for now I'm going to start with my wonderful English friend living in Canada now, Roger Watt. He is a graphite pencil artist specializing in railway art and also teaches illustration classes as well as free lance art recruiting for art publishers. His wife Frankie Watt is a renowned portrait artist creating the most unique and thoughful portraits imaginable. Now let's move south to Oakland, California to see the work of Jenny Balisle. Jenny says " I pool, wrinkle, scrape and create chemical reactions with solvents that mimic occurrences in the natural world". And her pen and ink drawings "explore repetitions of line and organic forms.". Her paintings are heavily textured layer upon layer of heavy paint till all you want to do is reach out and into all those layers where rich colors melt into each other and balance perfectly. Now head over the hill to Walnut Creek, where artist Sharron Bliss not only creates her own work but publishes the work of several artists. Her customers are mainly corporate clients in search of large installations. Sharron's work is created on paper and is highly textured pastel medium. She then uses many of her images to create very large pieces that are reproduced on canvas for her clients. Sharron has limited editions available as well as original pieces. Sharron is another one of those fabulous artists who creates her own destiny and lives her passion.

Yesterday I was speaking with a friend who said going into your own business is scary - and mind you, she successfully owned her own business for years - and I said, "yes it's scary, but scary fun." What is truly scary is walking into a corporate office and being told your job is no longer available. Being responsible for ones own income makes your successes and failures your own. so you may choose to succeed and your future is not determined by the over inflated egos of CEO's or the fickle whims of corporate America. To all you artists and independent business owners, I salute you!