This portfolio is JustineMichelle’s own work under the CC BY-SA 3.0 license, via Wikimedia Commons
I love the artistic detail on her statement on the left.
The Your Portfolio & You: Marketing for Artists series is a marketing, business, and organizational tool focused on artists and with useful information for anyone interested in starting up a small business. There are four articles available to read online with a free template you can download and use. There are also four books available on some crucial topics for artists.
The Your Portfolio & You collection began with my trying to figure out how to create an artist’s résumé when my career encompassed the creation of art. There was plenty of information on standard résumés but nothing of what an artist’s résumé consisted. Then there were the exhibition and festival requests for a biography, artist statements, etc., and it seemed only natural to write my findings up and share them. A sharing that evolved into a monthly column for an artists’ group to which I belonged on issues relevant to artists. Some of those columns became the articles below while others became a complete book on each general topic.
Portfolio Basics – Free Articles
In putting an arts portfolio together, some of the things asked for include a résumé, an artist's and an artwork statement, a biography and, of course, the photographs.
The following articles are freely available for you to view:
A résumé lists what you've been doing in the quilt and/or art world.
“The Artist Statement versus the Art Story” discusses the difference between an artist’s statement and the story of the artwork. The statement tells anyone who reads it how you feel about your body of work, what your philosophy is, and what drives you to create while the art story explains why you made this individual artwork.
A biography is your autobiography, a story of your life, and what got you started with art and/or art quilts.
“Art Images” has been updated and superseded with Dealing with Photographs, Slides, Digital Images although you are still welcome to download a free copy of this older article)
Your Portfolio & You Books
Those columns which I expanded and condensed into a single-topic book included accounting, copyright, everything you need to know about the images, and the travails of the outdoor arts festival.
Each of the book links below lead you to a preview of each publication—a complete table of contents for each, the number of pages, the price for each article/publication, and a summary or sampling of some of the chapters in that publication.
 |
Accounting for the SMALL Businessperson ISBN 978-0-557-63627-3 A most mysterious topic for most artists. This book will hold your hand throughout. |
 |
Dealing with Photographs, Slides, Digital Images ISBN 978-0-557-74665-1 What you never thought of. |
 |
How Copyright Applies to the Artist, the Buyer, the Employer/e, the Sold Artwork ISBN 978-0-557-77048-9 …a subject near and dear to every artist’s heart—that of protecting their work. |
 |
Surviving the Outdoor Arts Festival ISBN 978-0-557-77049-6 Tips and tricks to help you, well, survive. |
Kathy Davie is an editor, author, and artist with degrees in Technical Writing & Editing, Digital Media, and History from Metropolitan State College in Denver, Colorado.
A huge believer in knowledge being power, Kathy has an ongoing and free set of Author Tools for authors interested in self-editing with an ongoing series of posts on Word Confusions, what’s Properly Punctuated, those tricky Formatting Tips, and the sleep-inducing Grammar Explanations. There is also an online tutorial on Using Microsoft Word’s Markup Tool.
And if you get too sleepy, explore KD Did It for various writing and editing services.
Leave a Reply