"I'm going to have to start charging fees as well as commissions, but I hate to do it. The young artists haven't got a lot of money, and I get a lot of satisfaction from helping them get exposure and sell their work," she said.
Venturing Early
VIRGINIA, who graduated from Miami-Dade Junior College and is presently a psychology major in her junior year at the University of Miami, said she thinks young women (she's 28) should venture into business for themselves while in their 20s.
"It's easier to do while you're in school because you're used to enconomizing," she said. "Once you get used to a weekly salary, it's hard to stop work and try something new."
Virginia also thinks a young woman in business for herself can afford to be discriminating. She, for example, will not represent artists unless she thinks they are talented and unless she personally likes their work.
SHE ALSO works with the artist in his studio for a few days in order to learn his medium and learn more about his character and personality. She can do metal and glass sculpture and ceramics. And in between her psychology classes she studies sketching and painting.
Besides working as a legal secretary, Virginia had experience as a new accounts officer for a bank and as media director for an advertising agency. Her background now aids her in writing and designing brochures for her artists' shows, choosing type faces and negotiating with the printer, and meeting with gallery directors to arrange exhibits.
Her job has no set hours. "My printer works at night so it's not unusual for me to be reading proof in his shop at midnight," she said.
Almost Fatal
BORN IN TAMPA, Virginia graduated from Miami Jackson Senior High School and entered Miami-Dade to study marketing. Her college career was almost permanently ended when she entered the hospital for a simple appendectomy and developed an allergy to the medication which nearly killed her.
"I was not expected to live," she said calmly, "but I was very realistic. I had that 'I'm going to die so don't worry about it' feeling."
After a month in the hospital, Virginia went home. But she'd lost interest in her marketing studies and that's when her series of jobs began.
HER LONG-RANGE goal is to work toward a Ph.D in psychology and to specialize in child and adolescent psychology. But she loves art so much that she's hoping to find some way to combine psychology and art in a new career.
In the meantime, her goal is to convince Miami businesses that it's a contribution to the community to display a young artist's work.
"People who never visit a museum, and have no contact with art, will stop and look at an exhibit in a bank lobby," she said. "This also stimulates an artist to have his work seen and sold.
"I think that businesses, the community and artists have something to share."
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