Sarah Rosa Glickman never imagined that art, once just a creative outlet from her childhood, would evolve into her full-time passion and business. Today, she is the artist and entrepreneur behind Art by Sarah Rosa Glickman, a venture that blossomed with the help of the Wake Tech Small Business Center.

With a bachelor's degree in psychology and plans to attend law school, Glickman's career path started out quite differently. But after an internship where she worked on wrongful conviction cases, something felt off.

"I realized that wouldn't be the happiest course of life for me," she recalled.

Glickman started working as a nanny, but when the pandemic ended that job, she made a spontaneous decision to post some of her older artwork on Facebook. To her surprise, it sold almost immediately.

"It was very unexpected and eye-opening," she said, noting that moment ignited her journey into art as a profession.

With no formal business background, she leaned into her artistic instincts, working at a local art gallery and selling her work at local markets and festivals. In 2023, she was selected to run a pop-up retail space in downtown Raleigh, an opportunity sponsored by Wake Tech and the Downtown Raleigh Alliance.

"It was an insanely incredible opportunity to get real experience running a business," she said.

Although her sales increased due to the high-traffic location, Glickman says the real value came from the relationships she made and commissions that followed.

"Most of my income growth came not from daily sales but from community connections and larger project opportunities," she said.

She credits the support she received from the Wake Tech Small Business Center with propelling her business forward.

"We were supposed to meet with our business counselor once a week," she said. "But Todd [Lyden, the Small Business Center director] and I communicated much more than that. The connections he helped me make opened up avenues I never would have explored."

Glickman is now a vocal advocate for the Small Business Center, regularly encouraging other aspiring entrepreneurs to take advantage of its resources.

"When you're out here fumbling through this, it's amazing that there are people who can help keep you on track," she said.

For Glickman, her business is about more than just making a profit. It's about making connections and helping other small businesses do the same.

"If one small business succeeds, your whole community succeeds," she said.

She says her artwork is about the beauty of being human and that keeping her overhead low allows her to keep it affordable. Art by Sarah Rosa Glickman can be found online, at local galleries and at various events around the Triangle.

"It's a form of therapy for me," she said. "I never get tired of creating."