Portfolio's going into retirement

Dusted off the old portfolio’s last night for a group showing to Chicago art buyers with the APA.

Admittedly my portfolios have been collecting dust lately. Mostly for the reason that I am embarrassed that they are old to me. I had them made by Amanda Love (who got out of the business) years ago and by the time she was done with the process of hand sewing them they were already dated to me. Few people have actually seen them so if I show someone new they are unaware they are ‘old’ but I cannot help myself from blurting out how old they really are.

My images (I believe) have gotten better over the years and my style has become more focused and I want people to see that. So, I brought my iPad portfolio as well last night. And here was my dilemma: I LOVE PRINTS AND BOOKS but I also LOVE my images on the iPad. Do art buyers love prints and books so much that they will over look that they are not up to date? I don’t think so. Do they prefer the iPad? Do I show both? I am not sure because I am not an art buyer but I can say that after last night my old books are going into retirement. After showing both my books and iPad, I realized it was not about the craftsmanship and prints of the printed books, it was about the images and and myself… not about some fancy book I had made years ago.

I am currently working on new printed books because I just love the process of flipping though them but this time I’m not putting the time and money into them as I once did. The yearlong process of designing, printing, and building the book is just not worth missing the latest and greatest new image…at least not to me.

All that… and I still love my old books. I will keep them forever. But the only way to seem them now is on this slideshow.