In love with your work: these black professionals chase their dreams and get paid to do it.

Remember the curiosity, beauty and mystery of being a child. Every night your mother tucked you and your teddy bear into bed as you chorused about being an astronaut or princess when you were all grown up.

By the time you entered college, your joyous wonder was quickly displaced by the idea of repaying loans for a good chunk of your adult life. And as you hastened to choose a major, courses for being a ballerina or jockey weren't on the open course list.

Some black professionals, however, managed to stick with their la-la-land dreams of becoming an artist or novelist and still pay mortgages, contribute to retirement plans and take lengthy summer vacations in the process. Some of them found that it's never too late to revive that inner childhood dream, and after five or 10 years on one career path, they decided to make a act with luck and chase their dream with a vengeance.

Black enterprise profiled three individuals who earn honest wages doing their dream jobs - from appreciating exquisite works of art to sipping the world's finest wines, to contemplating the mysteries of the stars and planets in the universe.

ZEE ZAGAMI, PROPRIETOR

ZEE ZAGAMI WINE CONSULTANTS

For 17 years, Zee Zagami served as a lifeline for thousands of American Airlines fliers. As a flight attendant, she fed weary travelers and hushed crying babies. Then one April evening in 1988, Zagami met the man who would change her life forever.

Flight 44 from New York to Paris started off as a regular weekend stint for Zagami, who was famed in the friendly skies for choosing wines to complement the airlines' meals, or tipping off passengers on places to buy spirits in France, Germany or California.

Rolling the drink cart down the aisle, Zagami happened upon three businessmen aching for a soothing aperitif. In seconds, she spewed forth several suggestions. As luck would have it one of the men, Michael O'Reilly, was impressed with the style, grace and expertise of his hostess. So much so, he wanted to introduce her to a friend at the House of Burgundy, a wine emporium that formerly sold the wines of the Robert Mondavi vineyards.

"Most people in the business start with a passion," says the Indianapolis native, paraphrasing O'Reilly. The novice was apprehensive about pursuing a job in the wine industry. Granted, she had just read some books and taken wine-tasting courses, and yes, she could explain the nuances of fruity bouquets and choose great dinner wines. But how could she possibly sell wine to expert connoisseurs? "I wasn't even spitting yet," jokes Zagami, before she explains that serious wine tasters and professionals sip the wine, swish it around in their mouths and then spit it out.

Now she spits at least 10 times a day. Born Zelma Williams, "Zee" is now the president of Zee Zagami Wine Consultants. She assists restaurateurs (primarily in the New York-New Jersey-Connecticut area) in creating their wine lists, and guides chefs toward wines that flatter their sous concoctions. Charging about $75 an hour for basic consultations, Zagami counsels clients before the lunch crowds and in the wee hours after the dinner craze. Once wines are chosen, often as many as 20 for a small wine list, Zagami negotiates with the wineries to pick up the tab for printing the restaurant's new wine lists.

Revenues have yet to top $75,000 per year since Zagami started consulting in 1993, but she is confident she will garner more money once she completes her master of wine title at the International Wine Center in New York. There are less than 200 holders of the degree in the world - a concept that originated in Britain - and only 14 in the United States and only one woman. To obtain the degree, one must take a series of written exams, write a dissertation and master naming many wines in a blind taste test over several days. "This acknowledgment opens every door. The seas part before you," says Zagami.

The wine connoisseur, whose skin is the color of cognac, finds it somewhat ironic now that she nearly passed up the chance to become a professional taster. In fact, it took her five months to build up the courage to apply for a job with the House of Burgundy. The interview was short. When asked the age-old question, "Why do you want to work here?" Zagami quipped, "So I can drink wines I can't afford to buy."

Well, such answers only work for people on television sitcoms. But Zagami charmed her way into a position paying $20,000 plus commission. The entry-level spot forced Zagami to maintain her Icarus role at American Airlines. Schlepping between two jobs took its toll on the 46-year-old within a few weeks. Zagami snagged one of her first big deals when she lured one client with her signature mix of expertise and elegance (think Eartha Kitt as Catwoman). The enchanted owner ordered 15 cases of Robert Mondavi's Opus One at $300 per case.

From 1990 to 1992, Zagami sold at least $2 million worth of wine. Deep-pocketed clients included the River Cafe, a romantic yacht restaurant anchored under the cascading lights of the Brooklyn Bridge. The restaurant's wine director bought $10,000 worth of wines per week.

Then the House of Burgundy lost the Robert Mondavi account, and Zagami went to work for the competition, Peerless Importers, to continue selling the Mondavi line. Within a year she was promoted to wine supervisor for Nassau County. Two years later, she left the company to launch Zee Zagami Wine Consultants out of her beachfront condominium in Long Beach, N.Y.

As the beach sands get drenched by the morning tide, Zagami is preparing to show a client her 15-page manual on complementing food with wine. Dubbed The Basic Wine Course, Zagami swears it can help turn novices into experts. "Wines are like people - temperamental and moody. They have dull periods and blossoming ones. When I'm done with my clients, they understand it's a crime to drink a wine before it's ready."

THELMA GOLDEN, CURATOR,

WHITNEY MUSEUM OF

AMERICAN ART

Thelma Golden struts into the Bryant Park Grill, a Manhattan hot spot nestled between the 500-sq.-ft. park and the century-old New York Public Library.

It's lunchtime in midtown. Golden, a cafe regular, is unfazed by the spaced-out hostess and gibbering executives looming to edge out the small, five-ft. tall, afro-coifed black woman for a table. She immediately whips over to a nearby "power" table to greet a Whitney Museum Board of Trustees member.

Such splintered focus and grace is a pre-requisite for Golden, the associate curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City and the branch director of the Whitney At Philip Morris, an exhibition hall at the corporate giant's headquarters.

Holding down two prestigious positions, Golden explains there is no line of demarcation between her work and her personal life. Some mornings, Golden is chained to her desk writing an essay about a striking sculpture. By noon, she's vaulting down the museum's stark-white spiral staircase, which snakes from her office cove to the art space at Philip Morris, to preside over the museum's lunch traffic. Other days may begin at 7 a.m. with Golden schmoozing over croissants with a hot new painter, brainstorming about exhibits at lunch with fellow curators and sipping cocktails with an art collector before honoring a Whitney Museum trustee at a six-course dinner.

Golden clearly appreciates her long days, since all of that running about town enables the svelte, 100-pounder to slink into her trademark bellbottoms. Golden is one of a few African American curators in the U.S. who earn, on average, $30,000 a year. The 30-year-old curator is the only black out of a handful at the 150-year-old Whitney Museum. Her next show, a retrospective of the late African American painter Bob Thompson, will run in the fall of 1997.

Her second position, as branch director of the Whitney At Philip Morris, satisfies her yearnings for unleashing frequent exhibits every two months. The exhibition hall is 1,000 square feet; hundreds of visitors pour into the Park Avenue space, free of charge, to spy on Golden's latest finds. She organizes about six projects a year there.

THE WONDER YEARS

Golden, the product of a conventional family, grew up in St. Albans, N.Y., a quiet, middle class, predominantly black town. Her father owned his own insurance brokerage firm for 30 years and her mother was a homemaker.

Even as a child, Golden had a passion and curiosity about art. In fact, she spent most of her high school afternoons as an apprentice at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It was an inspirational treat for Golden to work with Lowery Sims, the woman who became the first black curator at the Met in 1975.

Golden, who graduated from Smith College in Northampton, Mass., in 1987 with a double major in art history and African American studies, notes that there were few curators at that time, especially black ones. "There is not a lot of turnover in this field. Curators never leave their jobs," she says, adding that the fear of unemployment could not smother her passion for her chosen profession.

Golden's first job in the art world was with the Studio Museum in Harlem. A year later, Golden was off to the Whitney Museum as a curator assistant.

But a burning desire to handle the works of black artists led Golden to leave the Whitney Museum and accept a position as a curator assistant to Kelly Jones, a renowned African American gallery owner. "We worked on cutting-edge exhibitions for artists of color," explains Golden. Soon, budget cuts plaguing the National Endowment of the Arts, affected much of Jones' publicly funded work. Ultimately, Golden was laid off.

For a few months, Golden freelanced for museums and galleries. Then she heard that the Whitney had a new director who was more open to different kinds of art. She applied for a job as curator and was hired a couple of months later. That was in 1991.

Last year, Golden was thrust into the limelight over the controversial "Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art." The 70-piece exhibit opened at the Whitney Museum in November 1995 and was exalted by some art critics as "courageously [subverting] the stereotype of what black art should be like." However, Golden's infamy stems from the protests of others who called the show degrading, demeaning, stereotypical and pornographic.

Golden repeatedly defends the show, calling it an exhibition of African American masculinity as interpreted in painting and sculpture, photography and mixed-media over the past 30 years. Unapologetic about not being politically correct, she says "People were starving to see a show about African American art, but not necessarily what I was showing - but I never saw more people come into the Museum. They came to see what the controversy was about. Either way I'm just happy they came." Golden says she still gets calls from museum-goers who crave such thought-provoking displays.

On sojourns for artists' cutting-edge sculptures or sign-of-the-times paintings, Golden says she is "investigating the notion of contemporary art and what it means. Artists don't work in a vacuum; there's an interaction between media and the times." To help her uncover the next hot artist, Golden serves on two cultural boards: Exit Art and Creative Time. Exit Art has an exhibit hall in SoHo that caters to visual and performance artists. Creative Time utilizes billboards, public spaces and other community settings to showcase the work of its artists.

After hours of intellectualizing the urgency for blacks to be a part of visual history, Golden admits that she has the zeal and vision to run her own museum. "Institutions change with a visionary," she says. After surveying the cafe for any lingering familiar faces, Golden adds that at $7 a stroll, "maybe the box office cost [to enter the museum] has to be rethought. The price of culture has become prohibitive."

CHARLES MCGRUDER,

ASTROPHYSICIST, HEAD OF THE

PHYSICS AND ASTRONOMY

DEPARTMENTS, WESTERN

KENTUCKY UNIVERSITY

He may study the stars and every galaxy of the Milky Way, but don't call Charles McGruder, Ph.D., an astronomer. "I am interested in understanding the universe, not in observing it," balks McGruder, an astrophysicist - one who studies the physical makeup of celestial bodies (i.e., stars, sun and moon). One of only 12 African American astrophysicists in the world, McGruder's latest project involves tracing the influence of celestial high-level radiation on the earth's atmosphere, specifically the ionosphere. In a sonorous voice that beckons images of Avery Brooks as Commander Benjamin Cisco on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, McGruder explains his work intensely. But he's clear and to the point when he switches into the calmer tone he utilizes as instructor and head of the physics and astronomy departments at Western Kentucky University.

"Paint a picture," he commands before explaining that we see stars at night because light, a form of electromagnetic energy, travels through the earth's atmosphere. Science fiction fans are more than familiar with some of the components - gamma rays and X-rays.

Neither celestial gamma nor X-rays can reach the earth. Along with a revolving team of physics students, McGruder is attempting to use the earth's atmosphere to detect these gamma rays and X-rays in his lab instead of having to go above the earth's atmosphere via a space shuttle or satellite. NASA's Goddard Space Center is footing the bill for McGruder's research.

STARRY-EYED

As a boy growing up in the 1950s in Bristol, Pa., McGruder knew he wanted to study the universe. He mastered the sciences during his elementary and secondary schooling. Upon graduation from CalTech, McGruder, who was proficient in German, was off to Germany to study original writings of great physicists, such as Nobel prize winner Edwin Schrodinger, who studied quantum mechanics.

From 1965 to 1974, McGruder sporadically worked on his doctoral thesis: Photometry in Centaurus penned in German, which spotlighted how and where stars are born. The ink on his Ph.D. degree had barely dried before McGruder was traveling from Europe to Morocco, across the Sahara, into West and East Africa, until he finally settled in Nigeria. In 1978, McGruder landed a teaching position at the University of Nigeria. But 10 years later, his dream job turned into a nightmare when government mismanagement coupled with the plummeting price of crude oil caused an economic crisis. McGruder fled the nation two years later to teach physics at Western Kentucky University. Then Fisk University stole him away to head their department. But Western Kentucky lured him back in 1993 with the chance to head its physics and astronomy departments, plus the flexibility he needed to do his celestial research.

McGruder's classroom secret is to try to keep the sparks flying when it comes to science. "I am a firm believer that the real interesting aspects are the mysteries of science; most professors just give the facts." His grant from NASA comprises an educational component that earmarks financing for McGruder to train minority students in astrophysics. Students work on different research projects full-time during the summer and part-time during each semester.

There were only four black students on McGruder's research team last semester. "It's a pity there are so few minority students studying the sciences," he sighs. "Science as it is currently taught in the schools is not fascinating. [The students] are the victims of an improper approach."

During his short tenure at Western Kentucky, McGruder has brought in about $1.5 million in grant money for his department. Current projects under his leadership include research on active galactic nuclei. McGruder explains that the galaxy is the basic building block of the universe and, of course, the nucleus is the center. Stick in the word "active," which means the center emits enormous amounts of energy, and we get yet another mystery of the sciences. "It's not clear where all this energy is coming from. Many believe there is a massive black hole," says McGruder.

McGruder's discoveries could land him the ever-coveted Nobel Peace Prize. But he nonchalantly brushes off the honor, explaining that he's working to appease his own curiosity, and that of his 4- and 2-year-old sons, whom he regularly whisks off to museums and space centers. He jokes that this week his 4-year-old "wants to be a scientist like his daddy. Last week he wanted to be a ninja ... or was it Batman?