Mother's Day Painting by Michelle Collins

I was a hairdresser for 12 years. With the birth of each of my daughters, I had to stop working. It is a very difficult to grow a business in the field, when you have to keep taking off months at a time.

While I was working, I began to bring my artwork to work with me. To my surprise people were buying my pieces! This was very encouraging so, after the birth of my 3rd daughter, I decided to quit doing hair. To peruse my dream. I remember thinking .. "This will be great, I can work at home, sell my artwork and everyone is happy". Ha ha.. boy was I wrong! I could paint and draw and sculpt but had no clue about the business end of art!

Worldwide Women Artists is an international collective of women artists showing and selling our original art through the worldwide web. As women artists, we give birth to our ideas in a variety of styles and media. We embrace the diversity of each others work, celebrating the joy of creating our art and sharing it with the world.

I still wasn't getting where I wanted to be though, I still wanted to do more! I wanted a show! So somehow, somewhere I found out about a gallery near by. I cant even remember how I found out about it. I called and got an appointment for meeting with the assistant director. The gallery was hard to find, it is hidden behind the county library in a historical house. They had no website and everyone I asked about it didn't even know it existed (we will get back to that later).

So I have to meet with the director and once again, I had no idea how to put together a portfolio, or any of that. I went in with a book with prints of my work about 6" thick. The director said I would have to wait for the assistant director to meet with me and went on to say "but while I am waiting let me take a look at what you have". I was a nervous wreck! She opened the book , looked at about two pages and slammed it shut! Then she said: "First off, nobody is going to go through all of these". Then she suggested I take a class in putting together a portfolio. I was devastated.

The assistant director arrived shortly after that and called me into the front room and sat me down. She began going through my book page, by page by page. She got up went into the other room to talk to the director. When she returned they offered me 2 shows. One for my "Mothers Day" & My "Time Pieces" series to be put on display in the gift shop immediately; and another for December & January with all of my work. I went from devastated to ecstatic in a matter of seconds.

The press went out and I made 2 headlines on my show in the gift shop! No pictures just articles. I was very excited this was my first show! I did not have any sales, however...but that was no surprise to me because I didn't think they got a lot of traffic even with the press!

And I found another gallery!

After that I began to think about the area, and how many artists there must be just like me that want to show and don't know how or where? There were artists showing there but I don't have any idea how they found the gallery. I decided I will build a website for the gallery. I put it on cd and brought it in to show them. They loved it and up it went. They still have it, however I am not maintaining it anymore so it is a bit different than what I originally designed. www.pascoarts.org.

A couple of years into my career I was asked to come aboard and work at the Progress Energy Art Gallery in New Port Richey, Florida. It is a not for profit gallery that needed help.

In my 4 years of working there I learned that most, if not all untrained artists (as I am) had no idea how to put a portfolio together (just as I did not). With my past experience, I sympathized with that and tried to educate them, however there were times when I did get frustrated. For instance when artists would walk into the gallery with 2 paintings asking if they could have a show. This is an absolute NO-NO!

Below I have found that should help if you are new and do not know how to put together a portfolio. I can rest my fingers a little.

I have typically used the internet to send my portfolio images, however there are galleries that still like it the old way. Hope it is helpful!

Welcome to my Squidoo! I am an artist, a wife & a mom of 3 girls. I became addicted to Squidoo in November 2009! Since I have received: LotD twice and 6 Purple Stars. I am a Giant 100 club member, a RocketMom and a Squid Angel for the Art History neighborhood. My lens collection features: my original artwork,free clip art I have created, my travels and several other topics I like to write about. To view my original paintings & sculptures you can visit my website @ ARTBYMICHELLECOLLINS.COM!