Meet Jennifer!

Jennifer Smith, of Charlottesville, Virginia, has been creating art all of her life, but discovered her distinct love for oil painting ten years ago. She specializes in mostly landscapes and abstract art, and is interested in displaying her work in exhibitions, shows, commissions and also providing art lessons to others. Her favorite thing to do in her spare time is paint, claiming she can never seem to get enough of it!

Jennifer would like to showcase and sell her original artwork and designs, as well as find a way to retain rights and make them available on other media, such as fabrics, kitchenware, tiles, carpeting, wallpaper, fashion accessories, and furniture designs. Her dream is to one day open an art studio or artists co-op, with a tentative possibility to drag in a crowd or local population.

For now, Jennifer is focusing on getting her own artistic business launched and being able to support herself, as well as add value to her clients and economy in the Piedmont region. Jennifer found EWI when she began searching for programs catered towards entrepreneurs or artists to help them learn the business aspect of their work, and when she found a listing for EWI, she applied immediately and was eager to enroll in the course. She says her favorite part about the course was meeting everybody, getting to know about each of her classmates’ creative ideas and watching their dreams grow into thorough business plans. Her passion has always been painting, and she loves to connect with people through her work and share what she loves most with them. She wishes to enable local artists to gather a sense of community, further motivating them to succeed and share with other artists. With Jennifer’s bubbly and eager personality, coupled with her amazing talent, it is only a matter of time before her art business flourishes.

– Mina Alemzadeh
Alexandria ETS Intern

Stylesmiths- Artist Feature: Kelley

Kelley’s ambition and determination are a result of her mother’s past struggles after emigrating the US from Taiwan. Kelley’s mother worked long and laborious hours at any job she could find. Because she wasn’t fluent in English, often times her employers took advantage of her work and refused to pay her. These injustices pushed Kelley’s mom to pursue higher skilled work and to improve her English, and now they are Kelley’s inspiration to push herself to expand her ideas and build her own style consulting business, Stylesmiths.

“Stylesmiths provides style consulting services to image aware, goal oriented, successful professionals in the DC area.”

Kelley has always had an interest in the fashion industry, but has found it difficult to break into the business without years of experience or formal training. Kelley turned to EWI to strengthen her business skills in order utilize her knowledge of fashion to develop her own style consulting business. Kelley has has had previous experiences working as a stylist for fashion photo shoots and has even taken classes to learn to make clothes.

“EWI is truly a great program.  It has allowed me to gain valuable knowledge on what it takes to plan, operate, and manage a successful business that I would not have had the opportunity to learn without their team of extremely knowledgeable women and their network of business owners, financial advisors, social media experts, and attorneys.  I have gained a network of empowered women.”

Written by Perri