Some things you don’t know about me, Daniel J Frey, aka Toby.

In 1968, I was eight years old and was rejected and humiliated for the first time because of my art.

It was third grade, and the school was having an art show, so I decided to enter.

I knew immediately what I was going to draw.

I had a plan to someday draw for Walt Disney.

Every Sunday, we would watch It’s a Wonderful World of Color.

Nobody seemed to think it necessary to tell me that Disney had passed away on December 15, 1966.

Every Sunday, he was still on TV right there in black and white.

I decided to draw a scene from 101 Dalmatians.

The mother and father dog, along with some of the puppies.

I had recently learned how to draw with a grid, so I applied this technique to copy the small picture I had from a magazine into a full-sized drawing.

Well, yes, I’m bragging here, it looked exactly the same as the picture I used.

I was really proud.

However, I learned at the age of eight years old that pride comes right before you fall on your face.

My piece was rejected because, as my parents were told, no eight-year-old could draw that well.

His parents must have done it for him.

I was heartbroken.

What won the art show, you ask?

A paper straw painted red was glued to a white piece of paper.

This was the beginning of me being at odds with the world and who I am.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

Next, at age 17, I died on an operating table, lost my memory of my family, but still wanted to be an artist.

I went to Ohio University for one year, where they scoffed and laughed at my Disney ambition.

I got married at 22, went back to school at 32, after being a house husband for a boy and a girl, got a BA in Physics and Art, got a BFA in Drawing and Illustration with a promise to help me get into Disney Animation.

The school didn’t help.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

I submitted a portfolio to Disney twice a year and reached 8th place in the nation the year Michael Eisner decided to burn animation down.

They were no longer going to produce 2D animation; 3D is the future.

I cried for a year.

As Bruce Springsteen sings, is a dream a lie if it don’t come true, or is it something worse?

It’s worse.

My dream, my hope, was ashes.

It wouldn’t be the last time.

At age 45, we moved to Burbank, California, where I entered the movie and TV industry as a concept designer.

That first major writers’ strike destroyed that career.

I partnered up with a writer-producer who taught me how to write screenplays.

I was told my ability to write put me at the 90% level.

To get that last 10%, I needed to sell one.

Still have my hook in the water on that.

Had some near successes with producing that would have changed my life and my family’s lives, but there are a lot of selfish people who only think of themselves and take away your dreams.

Now I’m 65.

I learned that you, as an artist, could become a Disney Fine Artist.

Need some help on that, please.

That eight-year-old boy who wished upon a star in that summer of 68 is still asking.

Asking that star, "Do dreams really come true?

Peace

Daniel J. Frey, aka Toby