Bold One-Woman Business Idea

A photographer I know, Artie Dixon, is offering her beautiful second home in the North Carolina mountains for week-long vacations for girlfriends--with tour guide to the sites of the area. So no maps, planning, or GPS is required.

The art-filled 1939 house in Little Switzerland is called Sky Blue, and its stone patio opens onto wide mountain vistas.

Three upcoming weeks have themes: Mountain Crafts, Greek Cooking (Artie's maiden name was Markatos), and Learning Photography. The area also has much to see and do: Penland School of Crafts, riding, hiking, waterfalls, the very groovy town of Asheville, Blue Ridge Parkway, the nearby mountain village.

The house is available for conventional rentals. But planned themed weeks with guide is a new twist. I like the idea and the enterprise involved.

It reminds me of my businessman father who turned his own outgrown tuxedos into a formal wear rental business that eventually wholesaled throughout the Southeast.

The questions to ask oneself in order to do something similar are:

*what do I have?
*what do I know?
*what can I offer?
*what do I have to offer that others need?

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"The World's Most Wonderful Enamels" from the "King O' Pins"

Bill Spear got his law degree in Nebraska and moved to Alaska to become an assistant Attorney General.

But then he threw it all over to follow a passion sparked in him when he was four years old and saw some bright enamel pins from a military school.

He'd always liked to draw isolated objects. So, first as a hobby, then as a business: he started making drawings of objects and turning them into bright charming intricate enamel pins.

He has created over 2,000 designs. They include images you might never expect to see as a piece of jewelry: a DNA helix, a bellhop carrying suitcases, a diver in mid-air, a geisha, a crawling baby, bagpipes, or one of many different species of fish and birds and other sea creatures.

Husband Bob and I went to his shop in Juneau when we were there a few years ago. First we noticed that people all over this surprisingly small town were wearing collections of pins, all at once. Both men and women.

We tracked the pins down to their showcases at William Spear Design, and were delighted with these wee bits of wearable art, mostly hand-made. Each one is so particular that it seems like a fragment of a story. I have one of a Prairie-style house, and a dinosaur, and a book with wings, and a tube of artist's paint. I have my eye on the high diver in the red bathing suit.

They're irresistible. (And they range from about $5 to $20 each.) I'm so glad Bill Spear didn't resist the urge to create them. And thanks to the article in Coastal Living magazine for info on his history.







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