Wednesday 16th December 2015
Well, it's just about that time again. The year is beginning to draw to a close, and it's a great time to look back at what you've accomplished over the past year. Hopefully you've grown and changed over the last 12 months, and produced a huge body of new work that will inspire you and drive you forwards into the next glorious year. But aside from all that lovely high-minded stuff, there are some relatively less exciting chores that are a good idea to get out of the way at the year's end - namely, updating your portfolio.
Some of you might find this an onerous task, sorting through your current portfolio and contrasting it with all your newly produced work. We all know how agonizing it can be to choose pieces for your portfolio: include too many and you'll hide your real triumphs, but omit too many and you'll lose a sense of your overall artistic style and progressions. Try to make it more of an enjoyable task, a kind of personal mini-retrospective about what you've managed over the last year, about how your personal style and artistic explorations have evolved from one year to the next.
If you're lucky enough to generate your income from the arts, then you probably understand the value of an updated portfolio, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're always on top of things. If you develop an end of year ritual where you review and update, you'll always be on top of things, ready to show off your best and brightest ideas. For bonus points, you'll start this ritual every quarter, but unfortunately most of don't generate enough portfolio-worthy work that quickly!
If you're currently working primarily in analog media - painting, sculpture, etc - you may want to take this opportunity to start digitizing your portfolio, as one of the best ways to increase your exposure is to make it easy to find you! If you're already working with a digital portfolio, good on you - now is the time to make sure everything is optimized, updated, and properly tagged so that you can reach your potential fans.
Updating your portfolio can give you a proper sense of perspective looking backwards, seeing where you've come from and how you've evolved, but one of the most overlooked benefits of examining these things is how they inform where you'll go next. The new year is rapidly approaching, full of promise and potential triumphs, but only you can turn these promises and potentials into portfolio-worthy masterpieces.
Posted on December 16th 2015 on 04:31pm
