Presenting Your Work to Industry Professionals: A Workshop for Portfolio Reviews

Date  | Wednesday, January, 25, 2023

Time  |   4:30 PM – 7:30 PM  (MST)

Location |  ONLINE

Cost  | $65 Non-Member | $55 Member* | $45 Student

*You must be logged in as a member in order to receive member pricing!

Instructor  |  Mary Virginia Swanson with special guest presenters:  Frances Jakubek, Gordon Stettinius, Lou Peralta and Elizabeth Stone

Objective:

CPAC & Medium are both hosting Portfolio Reviews in spring 2023. This workshop will help prepare artists to introduce themselves and their work to curators, publishers, gallerists and other ‘gatekeepers’ in the field. Whether in-person or online, preparing wisely for meetings with industry professionals is key. Don’t miss out on this rare opportunity!

Course Description:

During this 3-hour seminar, moderated by Mary Virginia Swanson, participants will hear the professional perspective of reviewers as well as the perspective of artists, as they prepare for their own portfolio reviews. This workshop will allow participants to gain insight into the importance of conducting research prior to ranking reviewer preferences, and hear how reviewers present their intentions and expectations. Two artists will also share their experiences presenting work in both online and in-person portfolio review scenarios, demystifying the process. Time will be reserved for Q&A. This seminar will be presented live and recorded for limited playback by registered guests.

Materials Needed:

• Zoom account (free) for access to class*

*You will receive the webinar link in the registration confirmation. To participate in an online course, students will need access to a desktop, laptop, or tablet with an internet connection. If you have any questions about navigating our system, please email [email protected] for more information.

Mary Virginia Swanson is an educator, author and entrepreneur in the field of photography, and a respected advisor to emerging and established artists and arts organizations.  Unique in our field, her broad professional background affords her a range of perspectives on making and marketing art. As the market for photographs is rapidly evolving, she is committed to broadly share her knowledge with as many artists as possible, bringing her advice to over 20 schools and arts organizations this year alone.

After decades of teaching workshops internationally Swanson has embraced online learning opportunities and is teaching her first long-form course for photographers, Finding Your Audience: An Introduction to Marketing Your Photographs (Winter/Spring 2022, La Luz Workshops).

Swanson co-authored with Darius Himes the acclaimed Publish Your Photography Book: Revised & Updated (2011, 2014) and continues to stay current on the growing market for photobooks, reflecting both the relative ease of self-publishing and the rise of the collectible photographic artists book. They are currently preparing the much anticipated 3^rd Edition of this widely respected title (anticipated Spring 2023).

Swanson is based in Tucson, Arizona, her website is www.mvswanson.com and her Instagram accounts are @maryvirginiaswanson and @ findingyouraudience

Frances Jakubek is an image-maker, independent curator, and consultant for artists. She is the co-founder of A Yellow Rose Project, past Director of Bruce Silverstein Gallery in New York City, and past Associate Curator of the Griffin Museum of Photography in Massachusetts.
Recent curatorial appointments include Critical Mass, Filter Photo, The Griffin Museum of Photography, British Journal of Photography, Les Rencontres d’Arles, Save Art Space, and Photo District News. Jakubek has been a panelist for the Massachusetts Cultural Council’s Photography fellowships, speaker for SPE National, and lecturer for the School of Visual Arts Masters of Photography i3 Lecture Series.
Personal works have been exhibited at The Southern Contemporary Art Gallery in Charleston, SC; Filter Space, Chicago; Camera Commons in Dover, NH; and The Hess Gallery at Pine Manor College, MA.

Gordon Stettinius founded Candela Gallery in 2011, its mission being to bring notable photographers to Richmond, Virginia, and to elevate the discourse around contemporary photography. Candela produces 7-8 feature exhibitions a year; one or two book related exhibitions each year; and one unbridled, free-for-all, group exhibition each summer.  Candela Books, a publishing imprint, has produced nine monographs and surveys, plus numerous exhibition catalogs.

Stettinius has been a frequent reviewer for photography reviews and festivals (Review Santa Fe, Medium, Filter, ACP, and more) and a presenter (LOOK3), panelist (FotoFest and PhotoNOLA), and workshop instructor (Maine Media Workshops), on the subjects of gallery practices, project development, and photobook publishing.  As an artist, Stettinius has also attended several reviews, exhibited his work nationally and internationally.  He is represented by Robin Rice Gallery (New York) and Page Bond Gallery (Richmond), and his work can be found in numerous permanent private and public collections.

As the fourth generation of a family of portrait photographers, Lou Peralta made a commitment in 2017 to devote herself full time to the artistic exploration of portraiture. Her work fuses pre-Hispanic influences with contemporary culture, often extending her photographic works on paper by imbedding physical references to historical and contemporary domestic life. Her work has been widely exhibited in the Americas, and is represented by Foto Relevance (Houston, Texas) and Obscura Gallery (Santa Fe, New Mexico).

Montana-based visual artist Elizabeth Stone is drawn to the exploration of memory and time deeply rooted within the ambiguity of the photographic medium. Through the repurposing of her analog materials, she investigates the spontaneous aspects of transformation. Her work has been exhibited in galleries and museums across the United States and is in the permanent collections of the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston,TX, the Center for Creative Photography, Tucson, AZ, Archive 192, NYC, Missoula Art Museum, Missoula, MT and the Nevada Museum of Art, Reno, NV. Fellowships include Cassilhaus, Ucross Foundation, Jentel Arts, Virginia Center for Creative Arts and the National Park Service. She is a recipient of a Strategic Investment Grant from the Montana Arts Council, winner of the LEAW Foundation Montana award and a finalist for the Clarence John Laughlin award. She has participated in over ten portfolio reviews in the last decade and was the top portfolio prize winner at PhotoNOLA in 2013, her first review.