Carlos Fentanes

I’ve just clicked the submit button. It’s the 21^st time on this year, 3 submissions per month, one every 10 days. Results? Nothing, niente, nada, in the best cases it’s just a rejection letter, in half of the submissions I didn’t receive anything, sometimes I found out the results on social media. I haven’t been accepted to any physical show this year and only in one online show and printed catalog.

On the other hand, my art production hasn’t been exactly very productive, my last piece took me 12 months to complete, and I have done just two more ballpoint pen drawings this year. How I then submitted to 21 venues? I recycle, I have submitted the same drawing several times, welcome to my world.

Is this a failure? I mean, my average acceptance ratio has been higher in other years so by results, it’s hard to admit but, yes. By sales? I’ve just sell one small double sided drawing on reduced price, another failure. Followers on social media? 0% growth during this year. Are these results just mine or there are other artist out there with similar results?

What am I doing different? I’m doing what I want to do and I’m not asking for critiques, opinions, or advice. Most of my work now cannot be published on social media, I have been shadowbanned on TikTok and I think on Instagram too, it’s very difficult for me to get more that 200 views on a post when I had videos from last year with 5,000 views and an average of 1,500 views per video.

I’m thinking about starting publishing on Patreon or in my website a forbidden page with all the paintings and drawings that cannot be shown on social media, how can I call it? The shadowbanned project? The Salon de Refusées? Or just Erotic Drawings? Do you think it’s a good idea?

Can I ask you a favor? If you like this post, can you click on the link of Instagram and follow me? Or register in Patreon for $1 a month? That would help me a lot. Thanks for reading me.