Toronto Flood ProofThat Students

Should Protect TheirArt Portfolios

Karen Kesteloot

The worst flood in Toronto’s history since Hurricane Hazel is asign that students must take precaution for their art portfoliosby saving them in external hard drives and cloud storage sitesto avoid the type of personal tragedy that Danuta Czubakexperienced after the flood ripped through her basement.

(Newswire.net via Emailwire.com -- July 20, 2013) Toronto,Canada -- The two thunderstorms tore through Toronto

dropping a record-breaking 126mm of rain in only 3 hours breaking through basement doors and leavingcommuters stranded on flooded freeways, subways and trains. The damage left by the receding floodwaters left Toronto residents wondering how to protect their belongings when insurance doesn’t coverover land flooding and certainly can't help Toronto's 194,200 university students who were at risk tolose their course work and portfolios.

Sudden flash flooding in downtown Toronto July 8 not only flooded out the Kipling Subway station, andhad rescue workers shuttling 1400 commuters off a halted Go Train in rubber boats but is expected toinflict over $600 million in damages throughout the city.

In addtion, the flood has left an array of personal tragedies in its wake with not only the damage tohome furnishings but by the loss of priceless family heirlooms, photos and artwork.

A report by CBC television revealed the extent of the damage to personal property. In the CBC interviewDanuta Czubak of Dundas St, Toronto despaired over the personal loss of her recently deceasedmother’s photos, showing the reporter the stained and rippled photos as she flipped through theirreparably damaged album. http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/story/2013/07/09/toronto-post-rainfall-safety-tips.html

It reveals the risk of damage to thousands of Toronto’s college and university students’ course work.Toronto is home to some of the top art and design programs in the country with several of the schoolsin the flood region. Students are at particular risk since they so often live in affordably priced basementapartments. The damage to Danuta’s album prompted me to write this story to urge students to beproactive in protecting their course work and art portfolios.

As the spokesperson for PortPrep Art Portfolio Coaching, I know the huge challenge that students facewhen they lose years’ worth of work that they showcase in their art portfolios to get into the mostcompetitive art and design programs.

Melissa Sklepetas of University of Guelph Fine Art who was applying to Sheridan's and OCADU'sIllustration Program last year lost her entire portfolio. She emailed me in a panic, "I'm kind of freakingout right now because I can't find ANY of my portfolio items, and I'm going to be making it over thereading week... I can't find anything anywhere". She would have had to recreate her entire portfolio ifmy photographer hadn’t recorded all of her work during my portfolio workshop since she had no recordof her work.

Flood Damaged Photo Album from CBC Story

PortPrep urges students to record their work digitally to protect their course work and delicate artworksby pre-emptively backing them up on portable hard drives that they keep with them.

To completely keep their files disaster-proof art students can save their art portfolios via online storagesites like Dropbox, Google Drive, and iCloud or even better upload them onto art portfolios sites likeBehance and Carbonmade.

Students can learn more about what options exist to protect and showcase their work on-line by goingto PortPrep’s blog entries on the best external hard drives or online portfolio sites.

As PortPrep's main spokesperson and instructor, Karen Kesteloot counsels students on how to make anart portfolio that will get them accepted into the most competitive art and design colleges with 100%success rate.

Karen KestelootPortPrep Studios275 Woolwich St, Guelph, ON Can N1H 3V8519-803-2539

Click here to view page where news release was first published.