Create a Portfolio

to showcase your work

Jean Béraud

If you have spent much time places where artists abound, or share my fondness for art supply stores, you will have seen the large, flat, frequently black pieces of luggage that painters use to carry the fruit of their labors.   Similarly, if you frequent the websites of visual artists, you will know that they sometimes apply the name of these containers, that of portfolio, to their online galleries.

Though they may not use the word, people other than artists also build portfolios. Whether butchers, bakers, tinkers, or tailors, people who make things for a living often set up websites to showcase their work. The same is true for writers, programmers, and, needless to say, the designers of webpages.

The existence of so many portfolios raises the question of whether autodidacts ought to create portfolios that record, explain, and, indeed, show off, the work that they have done to improve their minds. Such websites might feature reflections on problems engaged, reviews of resources, and tips of value to other people embarked on the grand adventure of self-directed education.