Yes, today is PORT's first birthday and we are proud to announce two new additions to our staff. From the outset PORT has been a successful experiment in evolving the blog format into a serious visual art forum, one that could provide the expertise that the subject deserves but is quite rare in more generalist publications. Big thanks go out to our sponsors who have made PORT possible.

It's true, when first conceiving of PORT we didn't realize we were creating a daily publication, but that is what it has become. The need for daily coverage is partially due to the ever expanding art scene activity in Portland as well as the increased interest from elsewhere in our local affairs. So yes, PORT is a local publication with an international reach. In fact, PORT's readership has constantly increased with a rise of over 17% in individual readers last month alone. With this explosion in Portland art scene activity and an ever expanding readership it became necessary to expand our writing staff (instead of creating our own brand of gin) and we are pleased to announce that Melia Donovan (news and announcements) and Jenene Nagy (artist opportunities and announcements) are joining us. We were fortunate to have such a highly qualified and competitive pool of applicants to choose from but Melia and Jenene both stood out. Stay tuned for details on our our 1 year birthday party in the next 2 weeks.

They will both be introducing themselves here shortly,

-The Management

Jeff & Jenn