I thought I'd post my latest email newsletter here...for those who missed it.

Some exciting things on the way!

Hello everyone,

How nice it is that summer is finally here. Aren’t long warm days just wonderful? I find I get much more done through the summer.

I’ve always said that Child of Mind is a many faced project and aside from music and other areas of art, there is something big I’ve been working on the past five months. In February my partner and I bought a van. Just a standard, big, empty, white van. And since then we’ve spent day and night converting it in to a camper van. It’s been HARD work and has at times felt like it would never be over. At times it felt like the whole idea was ridiculous and we were destined for failure but it was our dream, our mission to see the van converted in to a cosy and lovely camper and we’re almost there. Not many people thought we would manage it, most people thought we were mad but the finish line is finally in sight.

We will be travelling all around Europe, taking part in various voluntary work projects, exploring all the sights, sounds and smells we can and I’ll be trying to play music in as many places as possible. I’m hoping to make small films, mini documentaries and lots of blog posts along the way as well. Consider it the ‘Traveller's diaries’. My website will probably be updated over the next few months to accommodate for the ‘On the road’ section so keep a look out for that. We won’t be heading off till September but the big day will be round before we know it.

As an independent artist however, it’s difficult to achieve all the things I’m planning. I’m funding all of my creative output myself and this is something that’s very difficult to sustain. Over the past few years there has been an explosion internationally of crowdfunding being used as a way to fund all sorts of creative projects, from independent journalism, to concerts, to album productions or charity and humanitarian projects. There are so many examples of people coming together to make a project happen and I believe it to be really direct and pure. Many artists for example who may have had to change or give up their creative vision, were able to keep creative freedom through crowdfunding. I’m looking at crowdfunding as a way of moving forward with the things I’m planning, including the ‘reporting’ while travelling, whether that be a full on crowdfunding campaign or a kind of subscription or donation style setup for regular content.

While I’m working on those ideas and more ‘long term’ plans I’ve set up a donation button under my blog posts where, if you wish, you can make a donation to help directly support what I’m doing and help it to grow. The donations will help me to continue working on music, creating videos and writing various blog posts. Ultimately they’ll help me to keep expanding my creative output. If you enjoy what I put out, whether that be music or blog articles/videos etc, and want to support the growth of that by making a regular donation then needless to say, I really appreciate it!

The next blog post should be up soon but for those of you who missed the last one you can check it out here: http://www.childofmindhq.com/blog/2016/6/23/must-hate-be-infinite

And finally I just want to say I had a great time at the Fiuggi Film Festival. I met some really interesting people and had some very inspiring conversations. Over the coming weeks I may even have some videos from my performance….

But more on that soon :-)

Keep well and be brave!

Declan

Child of Mind

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