SAN GABRIEL VALLEY / COVER STORY : Enterprising Endeavors : Pasadena Neighborhood Center Offers Free Training, Small Loans to Help Self-Starters Realize Dreams : With Loan Aid in the Picture, Art Dealer’s Future Brightens

Passion for art runs in the blood.

Pasadena art dealer Wenonah Valentine, 40, felt the surge as a child, when she joined her mother for art classes at the Brooklyn Museum. Now, among the range of posters, prints and original work that Valentine offers her clients, is the vivid, abstract art her mother created.

Valentine has two specialties--collecting African American art and making it accessible to her clients.

To the latter end, she aims to move from art brokerage to art publishing.

“There’s just a small number of full-service African American companies that publish art throughout the nation, and I plan on being one of them,” she said.

Her first publication, in 1992, was a commemorative poster and note cards of Martin Luther King Jr. by Glendale artist Barney Patterson.

Although she started her dealership in 1989, the Pasadena Neighborhood Enterprise Center is helping her develop the business side of her venture.

The program’s instruction in marketing, taxes, advertising, trademarks and copyrights provided the technical information she needed. And she is applying for her first loanto cover various business license and trademark fees.

“We start to feed our businesses through loans rather than financing it out of our own pockets, and that’s what helps to solidify our businesses,” Valentine said of the enterprise center.

The name of her business, AnointedGraphics, came from a philosophy handed down by her mother.

“My mother taught me there’s a difference between an artist who is gifted from God, and an artist who is technically trained, and you can tell the difference. That gift is an anointing from God.”