Peggy Jackson is a freelance artist with a background in marketing and coordinating community events. She visited Portland last year, fell in love with the city and decided to make it her permanent home. During Peggy’s first month in town, she conceptualized a project that would embrace and celebrate Portland, it’s artists, and at the same time give back by funding some of non-profit organizations that do good work for art and education. The plan is to gather together Portland artists and illustrators to create a Portland-themed alphabet book for adult readers.
The ABZ's of Portland will portray a cool, hip, and perhaps, humorous, uncensored view of Portland, showing it to be a unique, beautiful, quirky, multilayered city like no other. It will feature the letters of the alphabet, with each letter illustrated by a different artist, and representing a place, landmark, or thing that is uniquely "Portland".
Our goal is for this book to be such a creative novelty that people will want to buy it as a Portland souvenir or as a gift for others. The illustrations will offer a diverse range of views of Portland, from the quintessential to the quirky. The books will also represent the range of artistic expression and diversity among Portland artists, from commercial illustrators to under-ground artists, from famous artist/illustrators to up-and-coming and student illustrators.
The book will not only highlight places of interest in Portland, but it will also serve as a directory to some of Portland's most interesting and talented artists. The final pages in each book will be devoted to providing information about the contributing artists and will include a paragraph about what inspired their letter choice.
The beneficiaries of the profits from the project will be the following three Portland non-profit organizations: The Library Foundation, p:ear, and Vibe of Portland
We invite Portland artists and illustrators to choose a letter and submit a finished sketch. Of the submissions entered, 26 will be chosen to become part of the final book – from A to Z, a love story to Portland, as an illuminated manuscript for our times!
An open call for artists will be broadcast on Channel 6 News, targeted internet sites, The Willamette Weekly, and The Oregonian. We will invite Portland artists/ illustrators to submit a sketch for consideration in the book. Participating artists /illustrators will have the option of either choosing the letter for their alphabet sketch or having a letter, with a suggested theme assigned.
Submission Guidelines
Step 1. Email peggyjackson3@yahoo.com with the alphabet letter(s) and Portland theme(s) that you plan to submit sketches for. In the email, please include your full name and phone number. Artists may submit up to 3 sketches for 3 different letters. The composition of your sketches should be in a square format, but the illustrations size and shape may change for the final book. The Tally Sheet in the post below will reflect how many artists are submitting sketches for each letter. Please note that artists will retain all the copyrights to their artwork.
Step 2. Email your sketches to portlandabzs@yahoo.com. Please include your website address or jpegs of other samples of your work. Accepted formats are JPEG, GIF, TIFF, PNG and PDS. Please make sure that your work is approximately 300dpi.
Please note - The ABZ’s of Portland is not a paying publication. The artists and Illustrators who are part of this publication are being asked to contribute their art as a work of love. The profits of the book will go toward helping to fund Portland non-profit organizations: The Library Foundation, p:ear, and Vibe of Portland.
If you have any questions, comments, or suggestions please contact us at portlandabzs@yahoo.com or peggyjackson3@yahoo.com or you may contact Peggy Jackson by phone at (503) 995-5340.
