[Previous entry: "But I *am* an artist...no, seriously!"] [Next entry: "Waiting for the other shoe to drop..."]
02/14/2006: "Help with portfolio ideas desperately needed!"
Today the Juneau Douglas City Museum asked me to help give a workshop for students and local artists, on how to 1. Document your work. 2. Exhibit your work. 3. Create a professional portfolio. They already have a local artist doing the documentation part, and the curator of exhibits at the museum is doing the part on exhibiting...so they've asked me to do portfolios. It's an all day thing broken up into three parts and each is supposed to be interactive...part demo with something for participants to do or take home with them.
I agreed to do it right away. I did a show there with two poets several years ago...they wrote poems based on my paintings and vice versa. Then we gave a workshop on collaboration the day after the opening; it was a lot of fun with half writers and half visual artists working together.
The only thing that concerns me now is that I haven't done much to develop a portfolio yet (oops). I have books on how to do them and I probably have all the materials I need to put one together (show invitations, slides, resume, newspaper clippings, reproduction prints of some of my favorite pieces etc.) I've considered publishing a tri-fold brochure as well...I have until April.
But anyway, pretend you are going to a workshop to learn how to put together a professional portfolio...what kinds of things would you be expecting/hoping for? What would be something fun or interesting to "do" for the hands on bit? I mentioned e-portfolios and they said they could get some laptops set up for me if need be. A friend and I were talking about how to do a promo video (using time-release footage of a painting being created) though that's probably getting a wee off track. Ahhh....*any* ideas or comments would really be appreciated.