Hi everyone, I hope you had a wonderful holiday season.  Don’t know about you but it was ridiculously hectic on this end and now I will not be available consistently from January 9 to the 19th.  So I wanted to get a final push to you for getting your images into the Portfolio Gallery for the preliminary critique on January 27th during the Forum part of the evening.

With that in mind, I want to check in and see how you are doing with your preliminary choices for this year’s portfolio.  I see that not everyone has gotten a folder in the portfolio gallery as of yet.  Please do that ASAP.  I am asking for a cutoff date of January 20 for uploading the images you have compiled to date.  That way I’ll have time to put together the presentation for that evening.  Remember, this is not your final portfolio, you still have until May to add, subtract and otherwise revamp your choices.

For the 27th our distinguished panel, Joe Miller, Scott Musson and Mike Whalen will offer their suggestions and feedback on where you are to date. And frankly, you won’t have the chance to get this kind of professional feedback often, so don’t miss this opportunity!

In order to make their comments meaningful, please upload your artist statement as the first image.  If you don’t know how to do that you can email the artist statement to me and I will put it with your images. Send to me at ginger.petricka@gmail.com.

One thing I encourage you to do is look at the images other people have uploaded and open a dialogue with comments, suggestions and encouragement.

Feedback is essential to growth as all of us develop our art, and with a combination of each other’s feedback, and the two reviews we have during the project we can all benefit from this project.

One of the things I personally love about portfolio is the freedom to present a subject that is of interest to me, without the burden of second guessing a judge and being in a competitive situation with my peers.  I hope you can also see the benefit of working on your portfolio.

Look for me and for Caesar at the meetings with any questions, or email me at ginger.petricka@gmail.com.  The instructions for getting a folder in theportfolio gallery are below.  Remember, you need to sign up in order to see this year’s gallery and to upload images.  Without signing up you can only see previous year’s portfolios when you go the member’s gallery site.  Take the opportunity to look at the previous year’s images, and read the artist statements for suggestions if you are stuck.  There have been many fabulous images presented in the Portfolio project over the years.  See you soon!

1. Get registered as a gallery user by going to http://nvps.org/gallery/main.php and clicking on register (upper right hand corner). Follow the directions on the screen to get yourself a login and password. If you are already a registered user of the gallery then you start at step two.
2. Send your gallery user name (not your password) to portfolio-gallery@nvps.organd request Portfolio Project participation.
3. You will receive an email confirming creation of your album at which point you will be able to upload pictures as well as comment on othermember’s pictures.  Please size your images as you would for competition, no more than 1050 high and 1400 wide.
4. THE GALLERY CAN ONLY BE ACCESSED BY PARTICIPANTS UNTIL THE END OF THE PROJECT