Many years ago I saw a show on Broadway about a young small town boy from Australia who has an enthusiastic dream to become a performer. He is taken under the wing of Judy Garland and married her daughter Liza Minnelli, eventually becoming a huge success of his own. The show was called THE BOY FROM OZ and had a brilliant cast including Hugh Jackman as Peter Allen. The music from this show sort of became an anthem for me because it was about ordinary people doing extraordinary things. This morning I am listening to it as the excitement is exploding through my mind and body. I was up half the night working on this idea of getting to Paris and Milan. Oddly enough after I posted yesterday my renewed passport arrived in the mail. It’s amazing how once things begin to roll the creative universe just seems to make it happen. Most of the trip is paid for; I am using up my sky miles to get me to Paris. Once I get to Milan one of the patrons I am going to meet has agreed to host me. I am planning two weeks for the entire trip and the only connection I have not been able to make arrangements for is several days in Paris to meet some of my most influential art collectors of my style of imagery. The key now is to create an outstanding portfolio I can take that will exemplify the caliber of work I am capable of creating. When you are meeting others there is a wow factor of seeing a physical portfolio that you can place in their hands to give you more credibility than anything you can show online. I have a fine linen 11×14 box that is used to house a limited edition collector’s series of images. It is my goal to now fill this box with about 20 of the best images I have to offer. The images will be hand printed on a gallery quality fiber based paper, then mounted on a acid free white rag board, each image protected with sheet of tissue designed specifically for such cases. My enthusiasm grew last night more towards the creation of this portfolio than the actual trip. I used to print things of this caliber for gallery showings, but have not done it in years because of the expense and time it consumes to create such a show. Now is the time to pull it all together and make it happen. After yesterday’s post there was so much outpouring of enthusiasm from all over to make this project happen. I feel in my heart this is where it is all leading and if there are strangers encouraging me then there has to be something powerful at work in what I am creating.

I was up until three this morning working on my submission to Kick Starter to raise the remaining funds I need to make this dream possible. I still need to cover the expense of creating this portfolio and there are still some incidental cost and gaps in the trip that I need to figure out. So I am submitting a proposal this morning to make you all a part of the creation of this process. Hopefully now Kick Starter will accept it and you all can become a part of my success.

There is a beautiful haunting ballad sung by Isabel Keating in the musical THE BOY FROM OZ called “All I wanted was the dream”
“All I wanted was the dream
Just like anybody else
I didn’t want it pushed aside
Forgotten on a shelf”