This is a long read but I wanted to share my ideas of a new life and business ventures in PR. As most聽 on this site know I live dab in the center of the South coast in the center of the historic district of Ponce. I have had a parttime experience with this for about 16 years. This is how I am building a life on the Island..I have a successful airbnb operation that friends of mine manage when I am away. They use the house for gatherings as a grass roots movement emerges.聽 These folks are artists, agriculturists, poets, musicians and the likes. We are creating a new way to live and I can offer my expertise of living independent of most lifestyles and having an American entrepreneurship education. None of this could have been developed without the internet and direct access to a retail market via the likes of airbnb, Etsy and other means of marketing that eliminates the middleman and profit loss. The us market is one of the major markets in the world and we have direct access to this market. Puerto Rico is my base of operation. My home is a destination because I give people the opportunity to experience an authentic vision of Puerto Rico via an artist's interpretation of Ponce and PR. Even the local folks I mentioned have experienced this when they are in the home and this has given them a bit of hope to be able to work together in creating a rich lifestyle that is not always determined by greed. Along with a manufacturing business that I have had for 15 years that uses online marketing I have other projects in the works that will incorporate聽 this grass roots movement. I have planted my farm with lemon grass. With this we will be distilling the grass for the oils. This can then be sold via internet聽 and used in making natural mosquito repellants and lotions. I can offer samples to our house guest with information regarding this grass roots movement in PR to encourage interest. I have also planted fresh curry leaf and kaffir lime leaves which are renewable resources that just keep producing. These leaves can be shipped very easily and inexpensively and sold directly to a specialized consumer via Amazon, Ebay, Etsy, etc. A paste can also be made that is added to coconut milk and introduced to creative chefs to open another taste on their menu. I will be putting bee hives on my farm just above Ponce. Cuba has a thriving business selling Organic Honey to Europe. I have a friend who travels the world promoting not only the quality of honey but very active in helping the bees survive the onslaught of pesticides and decimation. My farm has a huge amount of swarming honey bees constantly looking for viable housing. Organic Puerto Rican Honey could聽 be a lucrative business with a us market. I also had an art gallery 20 minutes outside of Asheville, NC and was considered the best kept secret in Asheville and became a destination. I gave an artist from the amazon area of Peru his first US art showing. He is a visionary artist. We had around 200 people show up with most of them under the age of 40. all this was created in a few weeks via social networking.聽 Just last year he was in LA and聽 was a bit of a celebrity with actors housing him and buying his work. One piece sold for 17,000. He wants to visit me in Ponce.聽 My idea is to create an international visionary art, healing plant and honey bee conference in historic Ponce in 2018 . By then I will have extra rooms available in my home, casitas on the farm for the back packing type. We will be able to offer organic meals, etc. I have a big mailing list as we have contact information of our international airbnb guests that have stayed with us over the years.聽 We have their photo comments and email addresses of hundreds of guests,. I have mailing lists from聽 people who have attended my art shows in Asheville, NC, Along with this I have numerous contacts. Along with this I have numerous friends and acquaintances who have very viable businesses that are outside of the mainstream way of seeing things.聽 All of this and more I plan on showcasing in a beautiful, culturally rich, historic, classic colonial town. There are plenty of empty buildings to house a temporary art exhibit and conference. This in turn could create satellite shows and exhibits. I would like to showcase the Taino culture in art along with the Amazonian shamanic art. One skill I do have is to become a destination and that is due to thew value of new visions in art and life style. This is why I chose Ponce many years ago without really knowing why and now I do. I will keep everyone posted once I resolve my investments here in Nc and turn my full attention the my ongoing creative adventure in Puerto Rico
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