Arts Development Case Study: Portfolio Day for Visual Artists

Held at Bournemouth Library, Friday 8th June 2007, 10am - 5.30pm

The Portfolio Day is a key action of the Joint Arts Plan between the Arts Development teams from Poole and Bournemouth. This is the second Portfolio Day we have delivered, the first being held at the Study Gallery in Poole in 2006.

Through this event we aimed to:

provide 1-1 advice and support for professional visual artists in the conurbation,
Give artists essential feedback on their work from guest critics,
Facilitate networking between artists and organisations.
Encourage the development of cutting edge and innovative work both by individual artists and art orgs.
Help artists to gain understanding of the level of quality their work needs to be at, including self promotion and presentation
Provide artists showcase opportunities for their work
Provide facilitated seminars on continuing professional development

What we delivered

Portfolio critiques with Jem Main- Study Gallery, Lisa Richardson- AIB, and Marianne Scahill - BOP.
Public Art portfolio advice sessions with Nicky Whittenham and Nickola Moore- BOP
Portfolio Day exhibition of artists work - temporary exhibition in Bournemouth Library
Professional Development consultations with Keturah Warren, Arts Matrix
Artists work to be professionally photographed (digital / slide options)
Professional practice and funding seminar with Emilia Telese [a-n]
New Arts Index website available to browse on PC's
Information packs
Lunch and informal networking to ambient live music

Attendance figures

25 artists attended the event
40 appointments were held, as some artists saw more than one critic.
13 artists had their work photographed
10 artists exhibited work
1 musician performed live

Overview

There was generally positive feedback from artists who attended on the day and there were significant developments on the first Portfolio Day in 2006 in response to their feedback from the first event.

The programme of 1-1's are the core reason why artists attend the Portfolio Day, as many of them work in isolation and are in need of constructive feedback about their work, as well as advice on how to approach galleries and working professionally in the visual arts.

Artists were given half an hour slots with their allocated critics, which some people said was not long enough, or not focussed enough on what they wanted to get out of the session - e.g. clear information on how to approach galleries.

However, there is no 'one way fits all' approach to working as an artist, and it must be up to them to get as much as they need from these sessions.

During lunch, high quality improvised music was performed, which created an ambient time for informal networking - but from the feedback it is highlighted that this could have been better facilitated, and a morning activity programme been introduced, to help better facilitate artist networking.

The afternoon seminar with Emilia Telese was very well attended, with 25 artists staying for her presentation. It also provided a clear focus for the later part of the day and gave local artists the opportunity to ask a professional artist working internationally, questions about her practice and how she funds her work for up to 3 years ahead.