Alice Ratcliffe – 20th October 2011
The first day at The School Communication Arts I was told,
“Buy a portfolio, take it with you wherever you go, make sure its always at your side, niggling and nagging you. You need to fill it. You need to feel guilty if it isn’t filled and a failure if your not proud of it.”
Our portfolio is our key to getting a job. So being a good student the sort the SCA likes to take on I trotted off to the local art shop. Hours were spent running my hands over the various offerings. I uhhmmed and ahhhed over leather straps, the texture of canvas and tried on several different sizes. I left the shop £30 lighter and strode through the streets of London with portfolio bouncing at my side. I was elated. My portfolio marked the start of something new. It became the badge of the creative club to which I wanted to belong.
It is the fifth week of term. Me and my portfolio have ceased to talk. It no longer bounces by my side but cuts into my shoulder. Its empty innards, it seems, have swollen in hunger for the work I have failed to produce!
We no longer walk the streets of London together. It sits sullenly at home while I head off to school and insensately nags me on my return.
But then came Blair, the school’s resident art director, who noted its absence from my side and provided us with some inspirational counseling to help resurrect our relationship. Portfolio and I now watch this every evening together.
Its time for me to retake my Portfolio Creed.
